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Movie Review: TAR

I heard so much about this movie, and as a classical cellist I really wanted to see this movie, especially because it is about a female conductor and I haven’t seen many movies like that. Cate Blanchett acted the hell out of her role, and I could not help but bob my head to all of the pieces that Lydia Tar conducted. I especially loved it when Olga played the Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor since that is one of my favorite pieces, and loved it when Tar conducted “Adagietto” from Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler. I remember playing it in high school during my last year and it was really special to play that movement because it is so powerful and gives me goosebumps. It literally tugs at my heartstrings each time I hear it.

The film brings to light a lot of the issues in the classical music world. It takes place in the present day and writer Adam Gopnik is interviewing Lydia Tar, a well-renowned conductor of a major orchestra in Berlin. She has all these accomplishments and runs a tight ship, but things get messy when allegations come out against Lydia after Krista Taylor, one of the participants in the program she runs for aspiring female conductors, commits suicide. Lydia alternates between New York City and Germany, where she lives with her wife Sharon and their daughter, Petra. Tar is a perfectionist and sets these incredibly high standards for success and this drives her to alienate the people around her, most of all her wife. When a young cellist named Olga auditions for the orchestra, Tar is immediately entranced and finds herself feeling attracted to the cellist. This puts a strain on her relationship with Sharon because Sharon sees Lydia’s growing attraction to Olga, and with the growing allegations against Lydia, Sharon and Francesca distance themselves from her.

There is a scene in the movie where Tar is giving Olga a ride back to her place, and Olga shows her a small teddy bear that she keeps with her. It is adorable, and Olga accidentally leaves it in Tar’s car. Tar finds Olga forgot the bear and she goes through the entranceway, which is really just a maze of graffitied buildings, and looks all over for Olga but cannot find her. If I were her, I would be so freaked out to be in that isolated area all by myself, especially because there is a rather vicious looking dog that is staring straight at Tar and Tar keeps running through the series of buildings looking for Olga but cannot find her. Then she finally finds her way back to her car, but on the way out of the entrance she trips on the hard concrete steps and falls flat on her face, which leaves her with some pretty nasty cuts and bruises to her body. She comes to rehearsal the next day and everyone is quietly aghast, but no one wants to be that person who says aloud, “What happened to you?” Tar sees their horrified looks and chuckles to herself in her Tar way, and tells them with a frustrated expression what happened. She doesn’t mention she was trying to find Olga, and instead afterwards gives Olga her bear. Olga probably didn’t want Lydia to find where she lived.

Another key scene occurs earlier in the movie. Francesca doesn’t want Lydia to find out that she had been corresponding via email to Krista before Krista’s suicide, and so Lydia asks Francesca to fetch her a cup of matcha tea. Francesca reluctantly goes, and when she leaves the room, Lydia sneaks over to Francesca’s laptop and looks in her email inbox and finds that Francesca never deleted her correspondence with Krista, even though she was instructed to end correspondence with her and delete the emails. When Francesca comes back, Lydia doesn’t mention she was snooping in her email inbox and asks her about whether she got rid of the emails between her and Krista.

This film also touches on the growing awareness of how white classical music canon is, and how to navigate these spaces as people of color. During a master class at Julliard, Lydia talks about the genius of Bach and one of the students, Max, says as a pangender person of color they don’t see themselves represented in the music they are working on because all of the composers are white cis-gendered men. Lydia gets offended by this, and asks the student why they are even in the master class to begin with. She humiliates the student in front of their peers, and even though Max listens to her berate them, they finally gathers their things and leaves and cusses her out. She tells Max if they wants to dance the mask, they must service the composer and also sublimate their ego and their identity. On the one hand, I understand she was trying to get the student to understand that as a conductor they is going to be subject to a lot of criticism and critics won’t care that they wants more diversity of composers, and that even though the composers are white, they can still find expression in the music. In fact, she tells they that they needs to focus on the music rather than the lack of diversity of the composers whose music they are playing.

However, I can also see it from the student’s perspective. In 2020 with the killings of George Floyd and other Black people in America and around the world, and the global reckoning with centuries of systemic racism, genocide, and colonialism, the world of classical music came under fire for its racist past. When I had an Instagram account in 2020 I followed found a lot of posts detailing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) classical musicians’ experiences with microaggressions and racist insults while working in the field of classical music. I can’t lump together everyone’s experiences with racism, but it’s fair to say that there have been quite a few instances of racism that people of color have faced in classical music. For example, historically operas have featured white singers in blackface and yellowface, and it wasn’t until I went on social media that I started hearing more people discuss how problematic this tradition has been for many years. While I saw Madame Butterfly in the tenth grade thinking it was okay that a white opera singer put on yellowface, I am more aware that this is not okay. I became especially more aware of this when I read a story in one of the newspapers about a famous European opera singer who put on blackface for her role in an opera called “Aida” and how she faced a ton of backlash because more people had become aware that blackface is not okay even if that’s how people have done the role for years. The movie doesn’t take a side in whether Max or Lydia was right in how they approached race and identity in classical music, but it did make me just think about the ongoing conversations around how orchestras are addressing diversity and race.

I’m also ambivalent about Tar’s statement that to serve the composer, one needs to sublimate their identity. On one hand, the music is there and people need to play it and go home, so there’s the job of conducting that needs to get done. But also, as the film continues, Lydia literally loses her sense of self when she achieves all this success as a conductor, and she gets to the point where her work and getting ahead of everyone else is the only thing that matters in life. She doesn’t sublimate her ego; instead, over the course of the movie, she manipulates people, puts people down and also suffers inside because she feels everyone is against her and she is also incredibly frustrated that no one is living up to her extreme expectations. As a perfectionist myself, I can relate in the sense that a lot of times when playing the music my ego would get so wrapped up in winning the audition or trying to prove the people around me wrong that I ended up suffering deeply as a result because I was so wrapped up in my own self that I couldn’t embrace anything less than failure. I think that’s why having a spiritual practice like Buddhism helped because it was a reminder that yes, working hard is important, but everyone is working hard, not just me, and that yes, I need to work hard for my dreams but I also need to appreciate the people in my life and not treat them like my personal servants to my art and ego. One time, in 2016, I auditioned for a professional orchestra. I was coming straight out of college and didn’t even have a music degree, but I thought, If I just practice, practice, practice, then I will win. But I became so focused on winning the audition that I burned out and started neglecting the things in my daily life I needed to take care of, like cleaning my room, doing dishes, vacuuming. I would practice for three hours straight and not take breaks, and I would get easily frustrated every time I made a mistake and use that as an excuse to beat myself up. So it’s no wonder that on the day of the audition, I had no energy to even get out of bed because I had just run myself ragged by cramming in so much music at one time. Wrapping up my ego in my dreams also affected how I viewed work in general. I felt that having a day job wasn’t like having a music dream job, and that if I just ran away to New York City to chase my dreams and perform with a prestigious orchestra and make lots of money I would finally be happy. But when I didn’t meet those expectations I set for myself, I literally lost it. I threw tantrums at work and at home, I got easily upset at the littlest things (I’m still working on changing that behavior to be honest), and if it didn’t have to do with my music career, I didn’t care. But I realized that in doing so, I was blocking out the people in my life who mattered, the people in my life who kept me down to earth. I had to understand over time, too, that even if I have a successful music career, in any field you work in, you have to work together with people, and some people you may get along with well, and others not so much. I can be successful but if I’m only focused on serving my own ego, I can’t expand my capacity as a musician because I have so much to learn from different perspectives. In reality, having a music career involves not just being talented at playing your instrument, but also being good at teamwork since I’m going to play music in many ensembles with people. I don’t know what it’s like for people who play in professional orchestras or conduct professionally, but it definitely seems that like anywhere else, you have to work well with other people and can’t just focus on yourself.

Advice for My Teenage Self, Written to Myself for myself by Myself

Written on February 25, 2023

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

WordPress.com daily prompt

If I could give my teenage self advice, it would be quite a few things:

  1. Have more confidence in yourself. Everyone around you is just as insecure as you. Sure, everyone looks like they are the popular crowd or that they are outgoing, but let’s face it, not everyone is an extrovert.
  2. Free yourself from the YouTube rabbit hole. You got sucked in and now you can’t get out. It’s pretty claustrophobic in there and it’s straining your eyes, so take a break and read a book. And it’s interrupting your sleep schedule. It’s hard enough going through your first period and puberty, and on top of that your body is even under more stress because you are going to bed at 1 am.
  3. Appreciate your parents. Seriously. As many tantrums as you threw, and as much of a spoiled brat as you are, you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your parents.
  4. Grades aren’t everything. It sucked getting those 40s and 60s on your math assignments, but in five or ten years no one will ask you what grades you got in middle school. Seriously, your worth doesn’t depend on your grades. And if you let your worth depend on your grades, it can either inflate your ego or sink it in one fell swoop until your drowning in your own puddle of self-pity. And this leads to another lesson.
  5. Embrace failure and learn from your mistakes. It was humiliating to have to sit with the kids in gym class and answer to “What did you get on last’s weeks test on lab safety?” because you knew that Greta Matthews got a 98 percent on the test and well, you didn’t, because you were up until 2 am watching YouTube videos of pregnant moms feeling their babies kick for the first time. To be fair, you were that girl the year before, the one who got both praise and eye-rolls for getting 100s on quizzes and tests. You probably shouldn’t have laughed though whenever the other kids had to announce their grades aloud and that many of them got zeros. Tony was right. Karma’s a bitch and it can come back to bite you if you’re not careful.
  6. Keep reading books. You love libraries. And you love books. Hell, you even brought friggin’ The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale with you to Six Flags. Six Freaking Flags, the last place you want to cart around a 400 page young adult novel! But give yourself grace. The people in your group wanted to scare themselves shitless riding Batman, and thankfully you didn’t need to join because well, you had your own entertainment. Which is probably why Texas Giant fucked you up so badly because it was a big and scary roller-coaster and you literally thought you were going to fly out of your seat on the ride and plummet to your death. (Thinking back, I still am haunted by those memories. Gosh, that leads me to another bullet point…)
  7. Don’t give in to peer pressure. So what if the other girls at school gossip? So what if they giggle and talk about how weird that girl in your science class is for having trichotillomania? It’s not as if you are any different from her. Hell, you have battled trich your whole freaking life, so don’t bully Angela for having it, kid, because once you look back, you’ll wonder, Why did I even participate in the gossip and the bullying? It was so juvenile. This isn’t Mean Girls.
  8. Love yourself. As I am sitting across from you in my comfortable therapist chair while I lecture to you, laying supine on the velvet red couch, looking up at the ceiling as the patients in all those movies about mental illness do, I can tell you one thing: I sure as hell wish I had Brene Brown’s books when I was your age. Brene talks about vulnerability, overcoming shame, setting boundaries and developing courage. Gossiping about others is a violation of boundaries. Remember Catherine? Yes, your friend, Catherine. You were friends but you also said she was “ditzy” even though she was one of the smartest people you ever met. Even Rachel was surprised to hear you say such mean things about the people at school when you talked with her over the phone. All that gossip came from deep insecurity. Admit it. It’s okay. You hate yourself. I know it’s hard, so here’s a box of Kleenex. Take as much as you need. Oh man, your eyes are getting red and puffy. Here’s something even better. Come here, let me give you a hug. Sweetie, you are going to be fine. Just be yourself. You only have five more years until you get to college.
  9. You are amazing to speak up for a cause you believe in. Passing around that article about that organic farming initiative at Yale University? Gold. Giving a slideshow presentation about global warming with Tina in science class? Oh snap. Encouraging your family to join you in your composting initiative for that science fair? You deserve a fucking medal, kid. Telling your peers to turn off the lights in their homes for one hour, being part of environmental club, wearing shirts made of organic cotton, and going vegan? You deserve a thousand gold stars. Sure you were pessimistic about the world, but you did you. And soon, you learned that a lot of kids at your school were passionate about all kinds of issues, not just climate change. They were passionate about theater, LGBTQ+ rights, coding, drill team, planning prom, the list goes on. Everyone is a nerd about something. Let your nerd banner fly loud and proud.
  10. Keep your hair natural. I have nothing against you straightening your hair. Plenty of girls told you you should straighten your hair to make it look prettier. But you didn’t listen and that’s okay. Sure, it’s not as if you would become this superhuman being or suddenly become more confident after running that straightening iron through those curly locks in one magical sitting. But would you do this for approval or because you really wanted to? If you’re doing it because other people want you to, you’re straightening your hair for all the wrong reasons and should probably keep it natural. I know you hate looking at yourself in the mirror each morning because you feel ugly and worthless, but seriously as you keep doing you, you’ll awaken to your own self-worth and depend less on others to define how you should look and what you are worth.
  11. Keep chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. You will develop an unlimited belief in yourself by doing so. And keep hanging out with your fellow Buddhists; they are great people.
  12. Stop staring at Blake in math class. He has a girlfriend already. He really, really hates you for giving him eyes all the time. He has told you multiple times. Geez, I wish you had Terri Cole’s Boundary Boss when you needed it. You could have learned a lesson or two from it. And it’s not like you actually love Blake; you just want a distraction to keep you occupied because you’re so unfocused in other areas of your life that need much more attention, like, you know, your classes, friends, family, hobbies. He has nice eyes, and oh, that hair, so blonde…but seriously, kid, just focus on your life and you’ll find love when you’re emotionally ready.
  13. Stop poking kids in the back with your pencils. No one likes it. They told you many times to stop, so why do you keep doing it?
  14. Stop giving kids your school supplies. You’re not a pushover; if you keep giving them your supplies they will keep expecting you to give them your supplies. Most times people may not give them back to you. I know you are a people pleaser and hate hurting people’s feelings but these are life lessons that you carry with you for years. People pleasing will get worse than giving away your supplies, it will spill into all other areas of your life: relationships, work, community, family, the list goes on. Eventually you will have nothing left to give because you are so exhausted.
  15. You’ll get through this. It sounds corny, but seriously just trust Future You’s sage advice. You’ll get through this and so will everyone else around you. You’ll thank your Future Self later.

Movie Review: The Banshees of Inishirin

Written on March 10, 2023

Content warning: self-mutilation, violence

So today I wanted to watch The Banshees of Inishirin because I am still trying to watch as many of the Oscar nominees as I can before Sunday. Honestly I forgot how much I love escaping into movies until I started watching all these films during Oscars weekend. In the previous years I saw maybe one or two movies out of all the nominees, and last year I had only seen The Power of the Dog and Drive My Car. I am a little more caught up on the movies for this ceremony than I am from last year, although I probably won’t be able to watch them all before Sunday. But today I decided to rent The Banshees of Inishirin because it got a really high Rotten Tomatoes rating and a lot of nominations, so I wanted to know what all the buzz was about. And it ended up being quite a deep movie, and it was the same feeling I got after watching The Lobster or The Lighthouse, which both left me with intense chills. I saw Colin Farrell’s* other movie called The Lobster, and other films where he plays supporting roles in Roman J. Israel, Esq. and Widows (*I almost put Colin Firth lol, I’m getting my last names mixed up. I always confuse Colin Farrell and Colin Firth the two since their first names are both Colin and their last names start with F. Why I always confuse the two actors’ names, I have no idea.) He plays the main character in The Banshees of Inishirin, which takes place in a coastal village in Ireland during the 1920s. The main character, Padraic Suilleabhain, lives with his sister Siobhan and he is pretty content with his friendships, until his longtime friend, Colm, gives him the cold shoulder and tells him to not speak to him anymore. Padraic is wondering why the hell Colm won’t talk to him anymore, and when he tries to engage Colm in conversation Colm keeping ignoring him or avoiding him. He then threatens Padraic in the wildest way: if Padraic doesn’t leave him alone, Colm will cut off his fingers. Literally. Not a metaphorical “ugh, I hate you, I’m just going to cut my fingers off. Haha jk,” no. Literally he is going to slice the fingers off of his hands. Which stinks because he plays the fiddle and loves playing music, so if his friend keeps bugging him he won’t get to play violin anymore. Siobhan and the other villagers (this being a small town, gossip travels verrrrry quickly) tell him to leave Colm alone, but Padraic doesn’t listen because he (and I) couldn’t understand why Colm wouldn’t want to talk to him anymore.

This film does imply that Colm might have been struggling with depression, even though at the time there wasn’t any super advanced DSM-5 book detailing depression symptoms, no Better Help, no therapy other than the local priest. Colm visits the local priest several times for confession, and admits he is struggling with despair, which is probably the best word they could call depression at the time. He still doesn’t think Padraic can understand what he is going through though, even though we clearly see throughout the film how Padraic feels even lonelier and more isolated when Colm continues to ostracize him. Siobhan gets fed up at one point with Colm cutting off his fingers every time Padraic tries to talk with him and she is like, “Well fuck this nonsense. I can’t deal. I’m heading to the mainland,” so she leaves, leaving Padraic and the animals. To go off on a tangent, those farm animals earned their own Oscar nominations because they navigated this bleak storyline with the utmost calm. Unfortunately Jenny the miniature donkey wouldn’t be able to attend the ceremony with Sammy, Colm’s dog, and Minnie the Pony because Colm accidentally murders her when she eats one of his cut off fingers, chokes on it and dies (that scene left me quite sad, almost as sad as the opening scene of The Lobster where the lady at the beginning shoots a donkey dead.)

This film explores the price of loneliness and friendship and whether it’s really worth continuing friendships if the other person is no longer interested. Of course, I couldn’t blame any of the characters in the movie. It’s the 1920s and there was no social media, so you had to talk with people face to face. Padraic just wants acceptance from people, and so he asks people like Dominic and Siobhan if he is really as boring as people say he is, and they have to reassure him that he is ok. Sometimes I find myself often dealing with these kinds of insecurities in my own friendships. Back then, you just asked someone, “Do you think I’m boring?” and now the idea of a friend has changed a lot since Facebook defined what friendship is. If you don’t like someone you can “unfriend” or “unfollow” them (that’s probably why there was a movie called Unfriended. Probably too chicken to watch it, but again I’m digressing) and probably not have to see the person again, unless that person is a coworker or relative (or worse, your kids.) But Colm and Padraic couldn’t just leave each other, and there were no cell phones at the time so you couldn’t be at the pub pretending to be on your phone and avoid talking to someone you didn’t like. Padraic often finds Colm playing his violin at the pub with other musicians or writing music, a piece called “The Banshees of Inishirin.” He really wants Colm to stop ignoring him, but Colm won’t let Padraic talk to him. We never actually find out what Padraic did to make Colm not talk to him, but all we know is that the situation just keeps getting more and more stressful.

When I saw this movie, I thought about an article I read in The New York Times Sunday magazine in a segment called The Ethicist, and there were two inquiries related to loneliness and friendship. In the first, the person asking the question says they have an older person who keeps wanting to talk with them, who is deeply lonely and may or may not struggle with untreated depression, and the person was wondering if they should still be friends since they have their own busy life to deal with. The other person asking a question asked about someone who they consider to be good friends, but the other person doesn’t respond to their messages or invite them to things. The Ethicist columnist concluded that the person might want to accept the fact that this coworker might just be an acquaintance at this point. This is how I felt for many years, and so I wondered for a long time, Which people should I consider acquaintances and which people should I consider friends? And, Am I too clingy as a friend? When is it time to show up and when should I back off? A lot of my insecurities have come up with my friendships and navigating them has been challenging, but I’m just chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for the happiness of my friends.

Dominic latches onto Siobhan and Padraic at first, and then Siobhan rejects Dominic when Dominic tells her he loves her and wants to know if she would fall in love with him. Then there is a scene where Padraic finds Colm talking at the brewery with Declan, another musician, and he wonders, Why does he laugh and talk with this guy and yet completely ostracize me? He catches up with Declan, and while riding on his cart, Padraic lies to Declan and tells him that he heard his dad got run over by a bread van and that he should leave to go find his dad and take care of him. Declan falls for this and leaves, and later Padraic and Dominic are sitting and talking and Padraic jokes about what he told Declan about his dad, and Dominic gets upset and tells Padraic that he used to like him, but that now he is mean, and he leaves Padraic alone. It reminded me of one time in the seventh grade, when I was really insecure. I often partook in gossiping about my classmates and saying negative things about them that weren’t true because I just felt that would get people to like me better, and I was talking on the phone with one of my friends and she started gossiping and then I gossiped even more, and she cut me off and was so surprised and said, “You’re gossiping about all these people!” At the time I didn’t care because I was just so hateful and cynical about everyone, but looking back she was getting me to stop and reflect because I was saying hurtful things about people (and unfortunately saying many hurtful things about myself at the same time.) When I gossiped, eventually all those people I gossiped with moved on and we were no longer friends.

Movie Review: The Fabelmans

I am gearing up for the Oscars Awards on Sunday and so I am watching some of the movies to prepare for the award show. It seemed so far away but I honestly cannot believe it is coming up this Sunday already. Time flies.

Yesterday I watched a wonderful movie called The Fabelmans. I had heard so much about it and I remember watching Steven Spielberg’s speech on the movie at the Golden Globes and how moving it was. I saw the trailer and it looked really good, so I decided to watch it. I have seen a few Steven Spielberg movies, but most of them are his recent ones (I had to go on his Wikipedia page to read about his filmography) such as the remake of West Side Story, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, and The Post but I haven’t seen Jurassic Park, E.T. or his older films. But watching this movie, The Fabelmans, gave me a deeper appreciation for the work he has done in film and the magic of film in general. It actually served as a reminder why I love movies so much. As a kid I was always watching movies. Maybe not PG-13 or R rated films but still my family and I were always going to the movie theaters and even during the pandemic I watched so many movies (T.G.F.S., Thank Goodness for Streaming). For the past few years after seeing so many movies and writing about them, I have become more interested in the behind-the-scenes process of filmmaking. I used to focus on just the acting and the storyline, but when I made time after the film to sit and watch the end credits roll, I began to gradually appreciate how many people work behind the scenes before, during and after the film’s production. I began to read more about cinematography, film scoring, makeup and costumes. I used to only pay attention to the cast members of the movie, but there is so much that goes into making a film, and The Fabelmans showed me that.

For those who haven’t seen the film, it is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie based on Spielberg’s life. The movie opens up in the 1950s, in New Jersey, and Sammy Fabelman is out with his parents Mitzi and Burt and his sibilings to see a movie called The Greatest Show on Earth. Even though Sammy is young, he is deeply fascinated with the movie, even though it shows a lot of violent upsetting scenes (for the 1950s, it was tame compared to 90 percent of the stuff today) where people get killed by trains and the trains derail and explode. Unlike his siblings, though, the movie stays with Sammy, and when his parents get him a train set he recreates the movie using the train set and a camera that his mom uses to record the movie. He spends so much time recreating the movie, and his parents see his early passion for film blossoming. Meanwhile, his parents have to deal with their marriage falling apart and Mitzi’s mental health suffers after the death of her mother. As Sammy grows up, he faces more challenges, including his dad not taking his filmmaking seriously, his parents’ crumbling marriage, and anti-Semitism at school. Sammy and his siblings are the only Jewish students at their school and Sammy faces a ton of anti-Semitism from the school jocks. However, Sammy has a passion for film and so he uses his passion for film to escape the pain of growing up and his family troubles. He meets a Christian girl named Monica who really likes him and tries to get him to become a Christian, but they end up parting ways after he proposes they marry and move to Los Angeles (she is going to Texas A & M). Even though they didn’t end up together, I think they needed to go their separate paths because Sammy really wanted to make movies and I don’t know if he could have compromised his dreams. Monica also didn’t want to compromise her dreams of going to college in Texas.

There was a pretty poignant moment during the prom after Monica rejects Sammy’s proposal to marry her. Logan, the school jock who bullied him, ends up confronting Sammy in the hallway, because the film Sammy made portrayed him as being this tanned perfect hero when deep down inside he doesn’t feel like that at all. He confesses to Sammy that he feels less than and feels embarrassed that Sam made him look like that in the movie because he struggles with incredibly low self-worth. Even though Sammy and Logan don’t end up friends, it was still telling that Logan was so vulnerable with Sam about his low self-worth and how even though he is popular, he is still insecure. Reading Brene Brown’s books on vulnerability and shame helped me appreciate this scene because it showed me that even though Logan picked on Sammy, he was probably grappling with a lot of his own hurt and pain, but since there were probably few to no positive mentors or mental health discussions back in the 1960s, the kids were taught they had to just deal with their pain by internalizing it and not talking about it to a trusted adult. I’m glad Spielberg showed this because kids, especially young men, aren’t just randomly cruel; they’re taught to be cruel by societal expectations.

Another really powerful scene is when Sammy meets John Ford, a famous film director, at the end of the movie. He is really nervous because he loves films and he is going to meet this guy and this guy is going to encourage him, but the director gives him very short but blunt advice and tells him to look at these paintings around the room. I think what this movie reminded me of is this letter I read in The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin called “The Eight Winds,” which explains the concept of the eight winds, which are influences that people can easily be swayed by. The four favorable winds are prosperity, pleasure, praise and honor, while the four adverse winds are decline, disgrace, censure and suffering. In an earlier scene, Sammy’s great-uncle Boris, who used to be a lion tamer and also worked on films, visits the Fabelmans’ house. He talks with Sammy about his time working in entertainment and sees Sam’s movie equipment, and that Sammy is editing some movie footage he shot during him and his family’s camping trip. Sammy’s father urges him to make the movie about the camping trip, but Sam says he is shooting a movie with his friends and doesn’t have time, but Burt tells him to do it for his mom, especially because her mom just passed away. It takes Boris to finally convince Sammy to make the movie. Boris tells him that if he wants to make art, he should really start with where he is at, which is with the camping trip footage. It’s a very down-to-earth exchange and it reminded me that when making art it’s okay to have big ideas but you need to start with what you’ve got instead of focusing on becoming big and famous because success is not an overnight thing and it can’t come at the expense of daily life. Sammy wanted to escape into his filmmaking, but he also had to deal with daily life and couldn’t run away from his family or the struggles of daily life, so it’s like Boris was telling him that yes, he should keep making art, but to understand that it is going to be a long-term struggle and he can’t expect immediate success.

Throughout the film, Sammy meets people who serve as protective functions for his filmmaking career each time he wants to give up. Bennie, who is the Fabelmans’ family friend, has an affair with Mitzi, and Sammy finds this out while he is making the movie about the camping trip. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth and the family moves from Arizona to California, leaving Bennie behind, but Bennie buys Sammy a film camera at the electronics and film store and at first Sammy doesn’t want Bennie’s gift because he had an affair with Sam’s mom and that really tore their family apart, but Bennie insists that Sam not give up on filmmaking even if it’s his hobby for a while. Sammy tries to give Bennie cash to pay for the film camera but Bennie tells him to keep the change, and so Sammy has no choice but to keep making movies. Even his girlfriend, Monica, encourages him to make a movie for Ditch Day at school and tells him that her father has an Arriflex camera he can use to shoot the movie. Sammy gets angry with everyone at the table because while Monica encourages him, Burt thinks it’s just a hobby and that Sammy should be getting more serious about his future. Sammy wants everyone to just drop the subject of him making a movie, but it’s like he has no choice but to keep going with filmmaking because deep down it’s what he loves to do. He ends up making the movie with the help of other people, and adds special effects such as using vanilla ice cream to look like bird poop is dropping on the faces of students sun-tanning on the beach. The film ends up being a hit and it’s when Sammy realizes once again that this is his passion and what he loves to do. It was a personal reminder to me to keep making music and writing even if I do it as a hobby for a while. It reminded me that no one ever just starts out “great” and “successful” and for many people their art is their hobby before they make a full-time career out of it. Many people in my life have told me to keep going and not give up in playing music and writing, and I’m deeply appreciative, even at times when I wanted to give up or felt ashamed to tell them whenever I didn’t ace an audition or got a rejection email for an opportunity. Sammy’s journey as a filmmaker was encouraging because it showed me that the most important thing is to just keep making art whether people like it or not. Even if you have day jobs, keep making art. Even if the people in your life praise you for it, keep making art, don’t get complacent. Even if the people in your life don’t like it or you get criticism, keep making art. At the end of the day, Sammy had to gain his own self-confidence and understand that this is what he really wanted him to do. Even his dad Burt came to accept that Sam wanted to make a career out of filmmaking. This movie showed me that a hobby is never just a hobby, and even if you make a career out of your hobby to not get jaded with success or failures, and to always keep going back to your roots so you can stay grounded when navigating the ups and downs of a career in the arts or really any career.

I really appreciate this film, too, because it reminds me that I can’t forget the people who made me who I am today. Steven Spielberg’s film shows how much of an impact the experiences he went through in his childhood and adolescence formed the foundation for his later life and career. His love for movies began when he was young, and even through all the ups and downs that life threw at him he continued making movies, whether he got paid for them or not. This taught me that even if I don’t get paid for my music or writing right away, to keep writing and playing music no matter what. My life has a huge influence on my writing and music, even if I don’t always directly talk about it. Sometimes I think that it’s hard for me to write about myself than it is to write about other people’s work, such as this film review, because it feels so personal and when I’m still going through the struggle, writing about it often brings up painful or uncomfortable unresolved things deep down in my life. When writing the characters I had to push past my own deep insecurities and confront those painful battles with myself because I saw so much of myself in these characters. But this film encouraged me because it showed me that our early experiences often do shape our art and it also has the power to encourage others who are going through similar experiences. As a child I really loved writing. Even now I have an entire bin filled with old journals I have filled out, and not all the entries are long and full of big words and flowery language. Some days I wrote and some days I was too tired to write. Sometimes I would just write about what I had to eat for breakfast or would watch on television. Other days I wrote about my mental health and how it was such a challenging thing to deal with each day. I wrote about love, music, books, everything I could. Sometimes I look back at these journals and it amazes me how much self-growth I have gone through over the past 20-something years of life. Even though I haven’t published a book yet, I still love to write and I have to keep reminding myself that making art isn’t an overnight thing, but rather a process of just making unseen efforts each day.

5 Key and Peele Sketches I Love

I am a huge fan of the comedy sketch duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. These are a few sketches I love from them:

  1. High on Potenuse: In this sketch, Key and Peele play students in math class and Joe tells a joke while the teacher explains the concept of a hypotenuse, and jokingly tells his seatmate, Troy, that he wishes he was “high on potenuse.” Troy laughs loudly and then says aloud that he wishes he was high on potenuse, too, and everyone laughs after hearing the joke because they think Troy made the joke first. However, Joe is hurt and tells Troy that was his joke and he took it from him, but the teacher accuses Joe of being disruptive and tells him to be quiet. She laughs at the hypotenuse joke and continues to give credit to Troy while dismissing Joe’s claim that Troy stole his joke. Principal Martin brings in comedian Gabriel Iglesias, who thinks Troy is the one who told the joke, and Gabriel invites Troy on his comedy tour. Joe is obviously very upset because everyone thinks Troy made the joke, and he once again tries to tell everyone that Troy stole his joke, and the teacher finally snaps and yells at him to stop it and that he will never be as funny as Troy. When she gets back to the lesson, she says “hypotenuse” and she and everyone can’t stop laughing. Joe, however, sinks in humiliation in his chair.
  2. Obama Angry Translator: In this sketch, Barack Obama (played by Peele) introduces everyone to his anger translator, Luther (played by Key). For every diplomatic formal thing Obama says, Luther interprets what Obama would have said if he wasn’t under pressure to be so formal (i.e. if he was allowed to express his anger). In real life, Barack had to deal with all sorts of stressors when he became president, the main one being racism and accusations that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. This sketch was genius because it says all of the things that Barack probably thought of saying but couldn’t since he is in the public eye. However, when Luther takes what Barack is saying to extremes (i.e. interpreting “my beautiful wife Michelle” into an objectification about Michelle’s appearance) he tells Luther to cool it, and Luther often does check himself in a humorous way.
  3. Pegasus Siting: A white news crew goes into a predominantly Black neighborhood to report on a mythical story about siting the winged mythical horse Pegasus. At first one of the crew members says there is no news story that they can report in the neighborhood, but the news reporter says that they can make up something because the members of the community will be gullible enough to believe it. The crew asks about the horse and the residents go all out to prove the existence of the Pegasus. They bring in a guard/ military person to track the Pegasus down, and brawls even ensue debating the Pegasus siting. Some residents say that the Pegasus busted in their roofs, busted in their cars,
  4. Ancestry.com commercial. This one was absolutely hilarious and tongue-in-cheek. In the sketch, several people are tracing their lineage to great figures of the past. The white people trace their lineage to Marie Antoinette and other white people in history, while all of the black people traced their lineage to Thomas Jefferson. As much as Thomas Jefferson was celebrated when I was growing up, I learned in college more about who he was, and it was a less rosy picture than the one I grew up with. Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner and fathered many children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. I think of course, because it’s satire, it pokes fun at a more serious issue with history, which is that these white figures are portrayed as heroes but they also had sides to them which weren’t so heroic, and those less savory sides aren’t given much attention or scrutiny in traditional narratives of history. At the end of the day, no matter how much I revered one of the Founding Fathers growing up, he was a slaveowner, as were a lot of those guys.
  5. In another sketch, Jordan Peele plays Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Key plays Tyson’s wife, who is sick of putting up with his nonsense. Every time she tells him he is neglecting his chores, that he is going to make them late for a funeral they have to go to because he isn’t dressed, or that he slept with another woman, Neil turns to the camera and tries to explain and make excuses for why he did what he with astrophysics. At first his wife is impressed and blown away with his reasoning and lets him off the hook, but soon after it’s revealed he slept with another woman she tells him she isn’t falling for his astrophysics reasoning anymore.

Whether To Have Kids Or Not

I’m at this point in my life where making decisions, no matter how big or small, seems to be incredibly challenging. Especially in the wake of the pandemic I found myself contemplating what the deeper purpose of my life actually was. My friends all started having children and getting married and at first I was happy for them, but then around 27 I started to wonder, Am I behind in life because I don’t have my own family yet? I realized that I can’t be happy for my friends if I’m stuck in a place of deep unhappiness, always questioning and second-guessing my choices. But not comparing myself to others is a lot easier said than done.

Of course, a lot of us know that it’s okay to not know if you want kids or not, and that regardless of whether you have kids or not you’ll be ok. But of course, people’s attitudes about whether to have children or not depends on culture and historical social norms. Comedian Chelsea Handler, in a segment on The Daily Show, talks about her decision to not have kids. She also talks about the societal pressure for women to have children, including clips from interviews by successful women who talk about how they are often questioned and criticized for not wanting to have kids.

In a parody of one of those videos on Instagram that show the daily lives of busy moms (to be fair, I don’t have Instagram anymore, so I haven’t watched these videos before), Chelsea talks about what her daily schedule looks like as a childless woman. Some of the activities include going to Paris and meditating on the airplane, eating edibles, wearing heels, and going back in time to kill Adolf Hitler. It was pure genius, and the end of the segment was also genius. In the sketch, she is at an appointment with her gynecologist (played by Julianna Margulies) and the gynecologist tells her that her life is going to be majorly affected by her decision to not have children, and gives her a pamphlet. She tells her that she won’t have to deal with the trauma of childbirth and explains other benefits about not having kids. She ends by telling Chelsea it is a lot to think about, and that because it’s an overwhelming decision she gives her a bag of recreational drugs and offers her tickets to Ultrasound, a concert where Lizzo is performing, and smiles, telling her that she can go because she doesn’t have kids to take care of. Of course, the subject matter about having kids is serious, but this is what I love about the sketches on The Daily Show because they bring humor to these serious and sometimes taboo subjects. The subject of whether to have kids or not is serious, but I love how Chelsea poked fun at all the criticism she is getting. The first thing I saw when I looked up Chelsea’s sketch is all the criticism she got for it, and people genuinely thought she was being selfish or was actually deeply miserable inside. That’s why I had to stop reading the YouTube comments at the bottom of the video, because at the end of the day they are all just people’s opinions.

Honestly, even though it was meant to be humorous watching this Daily Show segment was really encouraging for me because I was so ambivalent about wanting kids, and even though none of my friends pressured me to have kids, I was at a time in my life when I was deeply lonely and depressed and wondered whether I was doing this adulting thing correctly. But honestly, I am more confident that I will make the best decision for me. I understand that the sketch was supposed to be satirical because The Daily Show is a satirical show, but also it was validating in some sense for me because I am still unsure of what I want in life, but I do know that having kids isn’t really a priority for me right now. It’s also how I feel about being on the asexual spectrum. Of course, there are plenty of asexual people who have kids, but at the same time there are also a lot of asexual people who don’t have kids. I didn’t really find out about asexuality until after high school when I met this student at a college preparatory program who told me they identified as asexual and faced a lot of teasing for their sexuality. I didn’t have a label for who I was at the same, I mean, maybe straight, but it wasn’t something I really thought about. I would meet these guys and think it was romantic to have kids with them, but then these crushes always faded with time. When I finally came across the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network in my sophomore year of college, I felt validated. It was definitely challenging grappling with being asexual, and I often thought, Well what if this is all a phase? But years have passed and I am gradually becoming more accepting of my identity. I think just feeling confident in it is a challenge because it’s easy to compare yourself with others, especially with social media. Of course, I understand that I control how much I use social media, and that before getting Facebook I didn’t really care about getting one but sometimes it has been tempting to look at other people’s feeds and buy into this false narrative that everyone’s lives are perfect. I also had to seriously unpack a lot of what I watch in the media. It was easy for me to look at movies and TV shows of romance and think, Gee it’s as easy as being swept off your feet. But as I listen to my friends talk about their romantic lives, I realize that regardless of whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, relationships, whether romantic or platonic, are challenging because you may not always get along with the person or agree with them on everything, and it takes work and commitment to actually have a healthy relationship.

I’m also glad I have Buddhism as well because as I was chanting, I realized that my happiness isn’t dependent on my circumstances, whether I get married, have kids or even have a partner at all. It was easy for me to look at everyone else’s lives and think they were perfect, but chanting gave me the space to look at my life just as it is and appreciate it regardless of my environment. Since it’s a daily practice it is still something I need to remind myself of each day, but it has been helpful to have some affirmation that helps me awaken to a deeper self-worth that doesn’t come from my achievements or even my failures.

In the sketch, Chelsea shows some clips from successful women in the media who are criticized for living a child-free life, and one of the women in the clips is The Financial Diet’s Chelsea Fagan. I love Chelsea Fagan and The Financial Diet, so of course I had to look up the full video, and I came across a video titled “What You Should Never Say to Childfree Women.” In this video, Chelsea unpacks a lot of the stigma that women (and men) face for not wanting children. These criticisms range from “You’re selfish,” “You’re missing out” and “Who will look after you when you get older?” However, this stigma is also connected with a lot of established structures in society about what constitutes a family, and more and more people are moving away from the nuclear family model.

Chelsea touches on one objection to remaining child-free, which is the anxiety that if you don’t have kids, you won’t have anyone to look after you when you are in old age. However, Chelsea reveals statistics that show that many older people with kids don’t get to see their kids or be taken care of by them even in old age, so it totally debunks this idea that older people with kids don’t have to worry about loneliness and isolation. A couple of weeks ago I finished a book that my mom got from the library for me to read called Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, published in 2014 by American surgeon Atul Gawande. Gawande talks about how American society is reluctant to confront the realities of aging and death, and how a lot of aging people in American society are often left to feel isolated and lonely because they are often forced to face these realities alone in nursing homes and hospitals. American medicine hasn’t been too kind to the elderly, and in some cultures children stay with their parents well into old age, but particularly in American society children move out to live by themselves and this can be particularly challenging when their parents get older and they have to take care of them. He meets many aging people in nursing homes and in hospice care and explores how these people grapple with dying and getting older. He also shows how their families navigate the stressful process of grief and taking care of the elderly. As a young person this book was deeply terrifying at first because I’m young and I don’t want to think of dying, but that’s why reading Daisaku Ikeda’s writings on Buddhist philosophy have helped me navigate the challenges of facing these realities of birth, aging, sickness and death. From a Buddhist perspective, these four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death are inherent aspects of life rather than something removed from our daily lives. Even while growing up as a Buddhist, I still had this idea that you had one lifetime and that was it. Hearing about celebrities dying made me anxious about my own death, but as I continued to study Buddhism it reminded me that death is not this transcendent state removed from my daily human life. In fact, Ikeda Sensei says in one of his writings that birth and death are even inherent when we fall asleep at night and when we wake up in the morning. Seeing life and death from this perspective has helped me appreciate my life so much more, because at 27 I felt that life would be easier if I just joined the 27 Club and ended my life, but as I studied Buddhism I realized that I didn’t have to feel ashamed for having problems because problems are part of daily life, and that I can chant to have the life condition to face reality head-on. It wasn’t easy getting through that year but I learned a lot about myself in the process, and that even as I am striving towards success and big dreams I also need to stop and appreciate the little things about life. Being Mortal forced me to look at the reality of American medicine and the realities of aging and death. It was written in 2014 but I think it is especially timely because during the COVID-19 pandemic, many elderly people not only died of COVID-19 but also were isolated in nursing homes during quarantine. Many families in all parts of the world had to watch their elderly relatives on ventilators struggling to breathe as they battled against COVID-19, and not being able to touch them or hold their hand or provide much comfort because they could only do it outside the hospital room to not risk the family member contracting the virus.

But that was a tangent and this blog post is getting rather lengthy so I will continue this discussion in another post.

Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

I finally watched Wakanda Forever after hearing my family talking about it some months ago. Honestly it was really powerful and also touching because at the beginning they pay tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, who played the main character, King T’Challa, in Black Panther. Like many people, I was pretty emotional when Chadwick passed away in 2020 and when they premiered Black Panther I broke down and cried, and afterwards they had a tribute to Chadwick where his co-stars, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson and others, paid tribute to him, and after that I just cried even harder. I honestly wasn’t sure if they were going to make a sequel after Chadwick passed away, but they weaved his passing into the beginning of the storyline in a poignant and profound way.

I also really love the score, which is the genius of composer Ludwig Goransson, who also did the score for the first movie.

In this movie, the nation of Wakanda is grappling with the death of King T’Challa, and apparently there is another nation that has vibranium. Most people thought Wakanda was the only country with the precious mineral vibranium but there is another nation, Talokan, that has vibranium as well. This made me think about the history of colonialism in Africa and the early Americas, where European colonizers exploited Indigenous peoples for their resources and profited off of them and enslaved these peoples for their resources. At the beginning, Queen Ramonda is in a conference with global leaders who accuse Wakanda of not being involved enough in international affairs and makes a comment about their vibranium resources. Queen Ramonda tells them that Wakanda is the only nation with vibranium and they are determined to protect this resource at all costs because human beings outside of Wakanda want to exploit the country for its vibranium. However, one evening when Queen Ramonda and her daughter, Shuri, are sitting outside near a campfire, the leader of Talokan, Namor, emerges from the ocean and is decked out in vibranium. Queen Ramonda is wondering how he got ahold of the vibranium, but Namor tells her that Wakanda isn’t the only place with vibranium and that Talokan has had vibranium for years.

This movie also delves into the history of Indigenous cultures and colonialism. Talokan talks about how when his mother was pregnant with him, European colonizers invaded the land and got the Indigenous communities sick with illness, killing many people. His mother and other people in the community took a substance that gave them the power to live underwater. At the beginning, some scientists are on a marine voyage and they hear a choir of the Talokan people underwater, and the people on the crew of the ship are hypnotized and they start jumping over the boat to their deaths. Two of the scientists escape in time but just barely because Namor destroys their helicopter. As the movie progresses, we see how the Wakandans have to battle an even greater force while battling the people of Talokan. In one scene, Riri, Shuri and Okoye are escaping from the police and they escape them, but then the Talokan people fight them and even though Okoye has her spear to fight them, they end up beating up Okoye really badly and taking away Shuri and Riri to Talokan. When Shuri and Riri are in Talokan they are figuring out how to get back to Wakanda especially because Queen Ramonda is worried sick. Okoye comes back to Wakanda and wants to find Shuri and Riri, but Ramonda tells her it’s her fault for bringing Shuri with her to get Riri. When Shuri and Riri are in Talokan they are figuring out how to get back to Wakanda, but Namor meets with Shuri and he takes her underwater to explore the land of Talokan. He hopes to win her favor, but Shuri is loyal to Wakanda. This makes Namor angry and he and the other people of Talokan go into Wakanda and destroy everything. Namor sees Ramonda in the kingdom and throws these water grenades at the window, and these grenades explode and drown the kingdom in a deluge of water, killing Ramonda. Even though they try to revive Ramonda it is to no avail, and so they not only have lost King T’Challa but also Shuri has lost her mother, too. Shuri puts on the Black Panther suit and drinks an herb she has been working on for so long, and it gives her the strength to take down Namor. After she drinks the herb she finds herself confronting Killmonger, and he tells her that now that King T’Challa is dead they can use their power to take over Wakanda. This makes Shuri angry and she musters up her strength to fight Namor. When she and Namor are in the desert, she is about to kill him but she remembers her mother’s words and understands that she doesn’t have to kill Namor to bring peace to Wakanda. As the Talokan and Wakandan people are fighting each other, Shuri and Namor re-emerge and declare peace between Talokan and Wakanda.

I gotta give mad props to the people in the makeup and costume departments for both the first and second Black Panther movies. The costumes were amazing. And as always, I love Martin Freeman. I also love Shuri and Riri because they are Black women working in the sciences and technology, so I was like, “Yes! #BlackGirlMagic.” Also the Dora Milaje are badasses. And Angela Bassett, as always, is amazing.

The Babysitter (CW: explicit)

It was a Friday night. Kayla and her kids were sitting on the couch watching SpongeBob SquarePants, Kayla cradling her prominent bump. She was about to approach her due date pretty soon. She was going to have another girl. These nine months have felt like nine weeks.

Dave came out from the kitchen, holding a plate piled high with nachos. Steaming chips dripping with gooey melted Velveeta cheese, piles of greasy ground beef, topped with sour cream, guacamole and salsa. Was he going to share some with his wife and kids? I wondered as I folded Mike and Laurie’s laundry, making sure Mike’s Power Ranger pajamas were creased and folded perfectly, the way Kayla wants me to fold them. I have been working as a babysitter for the McRobbins family for four years now. I needed a job to pay for my college tuition, and so far it has provided a good way to pay my bills and also, the kids are too darn cute for me to leave them.

Dave crams nachos in his mouth, and finally he offers the remaining half of the nachos to his wife and kids. Kayla rescues a chip from the cheese pile, scoops up some ground beef and guacamole, and crams it in her mouth. The kids are busy eating Goldfish with their eyes glued to the television. I hear a ping, and walk over to my phone. My girlfriend, Katherine, has just texted me.

Kat: U ok?

Me: Yeah. Love you.

Two minutes pass, then my phone pings again.

Kat: Love u more.

I put my phone back in my pocket, and continue to fold the laundry.

“Hey, Jenny! Can you get me that pint of Blue Bell from the freezer?”

The soon-to-be-born baby was craving chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I walk over to the freezer, and am about to open the door and take in the cold air, when I hear a loud groan.

My blood freezes.

I hear the plate clatter on the hardwood floor. I walk in and I see the nachos piled on the floor. Bret, the family’s cute Border Terrier, is licking off cheese and meat from the floor with a delighted expression on his face. I’m going to have to clean up his vomit later because he surely can’t be eating that.

But that’s the least of my worries. Dave is grabbing the hospital bag from the kitchen table, and he rushes over to his wife, who is red in the face and panting, clutching her stomach in pain, gritting her teeth as another intense wave of contractions courses through her body.

“Jenny, call the doctor.”

I nod, and scroll through my contacts. Kayla had me to keep Dr. Gross’s phone number in my contacts for when the due date came. I quickly enter the ok button, and wait as the dial tone rings.

“Welcome to Medical City. If you are in labor or have an emergency, press 1…”

Without waiting for the other options, I press 1.

“Please hold.”

Some elevator music plays on the other line. A sweet voice answers the phone.

“Dr. Gross’s office. This is Linda. How may I help you?”

“I have a patient named Kayla McRobbins. She is in labor.”

“Wonderful. I will let Dr. Gross know.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. See you at the hospital.”

I hang up.

Kayla is a puddle of sweat and tears as she bends over in pain.

“Dave, they’re ready.”

“Thanks, Jenny. We’ll see you and the kids when we get back from the hospital.”

I help Kayla walk to the door. She clings to my arm.

“Breathe.”

She remembers what she learned during the birth class, and takes quick breaths in and out.

I help her into the car, and watch as they drive off. I go back inside the house.

“Mom’s gonna be ok.” I reassure the kids. They are no longer watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Bret is looking up at me with a pained expression. I should have told him to not eat those nachos.

Then I hear a ping. I check my phone but haven’t gotten any messages. I hear another. It’s coming from the kitchen. Dave left his phone by accident on the kitchen counter. I pick it up. The messages are from a woman I don’t know named Carla.

Carla: Hey babe. U free to talk?

Carla: We had such a good time last night on the phone.

I freeze. Wait, it can’t be. Is Dave…cheating?

I know I shouldn’t be nosy. But seriously, it’s Dave’s fault. I wouldn’t have gone through his phone if he was a little smarter and listened when his wife told him to create a PIN for security reasons.

I scroll through the text thread, and my blood runs cold.

Dave: Hey baby.

Carla: Hey.

Dave: Send me some sexy vibes.

Carla: I am wet. My fingers are touching myself. When I think of you on top of me…

Dave: I’m getting wet too.

Carla: I am moaning. My finger is rubbing that spot. I want you to feel my body all over.

Dave: My hands feel their way through your tits. I want to cream all over you. I want to grab your juicy ass and—

I put the phone down. I am nauseous. I literally cannot read anything more from this jackass. How long has he been with this girl? Is this his ex from college he thought he left behind? I know he once dated a woman named Carla Richards during the Stone Age, but there are so many Carlas out there…

My head spins. I nervously look at Mike and Laurie as they gently rub Bret’s upset stomach and coo to him baby words to make him feel better. I would rather die than ruin these sweet little souls’ lives by telling them their dad is a liar, a cheater, a jerk. I can’t do anything right now. Dave and Kayla are at the hospital. What am I going to do? Drive up there to the emergency room and tell Kayla during her strenuous labor that her husband is cheating on her with his ex? Gosh, that would really ruin everything.

I quietly chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to calm down. So glad my friend told me about Buddhism because I don’t know if I can handle all the thoughts and anxieties running through my head right now.

It turns out I didn’t have to really do anything. A couple of months later, Kayla found her husband’s phone and saw he was texting Carla, and she kicked his ass out of the house for good.

“But baby, please, what about the kids? What about us?”

“DAVE! LISTEN TO YOURSELF RIGHT THIS FUCKING MINUTE. I SPENT NINE FUCKING MONTHS CONCEIVING YOUR THIRD KID AND I TOOK CARE OF THE KIDS WHILE YOU SHOVED NACHOS DOWN YOUR BEERGUT STOMACH AND HAD PHONE SEX WITH SOME CHICK FROM COLLEGE! DO YOU THINK I GIVE A FUCK WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU AND ME TEN YEARS—NO, FUCK THAT, TEN SECONDS FROM NOW?”

I heard the door slam and a loud “FUCK YOU” that definitely didn’t come from Kayla this time. I was in the kitchen cooking breakfast for the kids and Baby No.3, Greta. As greasy rashes of bacon danced in the frying pan with sunny side up eggs, my blood ran cold. I wish I had told her sooner but what was I to do? She was in the hospital, about to give birth. I didn’t have time to tell her Dave was cheating on her. I turn the stove off and dish out the breakfast for the kids.

Kayla walks quickly into the kitchen, wearing a black suit and sleek Louboutin heels. Her mascara is smudged and her perfect cherry-red hair is a mess. She sees me and then breaks down in tears. Just stands there and cries. I don’t know what to do.

She then comes over to me and gives me a hug. Her tears and mascara smudge on my cheek, but I don’t even care. We quietly stay like this for a good five minutes and I don’t let go once.

She pulls apart from me and sniffles.

“Do you think you need a day off?”

She nods, then her lips tremble and she cries even harder.

I grab my phone to dial her boss, Miranda, but she puts a hand on my arm.

She shakes her head and whispers, “It’s ok. I’ll email her later.”

We make our way quietly to the couch and watch some TV, the kids’ cacophonous cries echoing behind us from the kitchen.

Movie Review: The Wife

Last week I watched this really good movie called The Wife. It was very powerful. I first heard of it actually while watching a skit on Saturday Night Live that was poking fun at Steve Harvey’s show Family Feud. It was an Oscar Nominees edition, and the contestants were divided between long time actors and new actors. One of the actors was Glenn Close (played by Kate McKinnon) for her performance in The Wife. I was curious about the movie after watching that sketch, and honestly this movie was deep. It was really deep. It’s about this married couple named Joan and Joe Castleman, and they live a seemingly quiet and comfortable life in New England. But one morning Joe gets a call from the Nobel Prize committee telling him he is invited to the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Sweden because he won the prize for literature. The couple are excited, as they should be, but through the course of the film it is clear that there is a less innocent backstory that comes with Joe’s success. We find out that Joan wrote a lot of Joe’s work for him because at the time he was struggling to publish his own work and was jealous of Joan for being a good writer, so he made her write his work for him and he took credit for it all. Joan wants to leave her past behind, but a reporter named Nathaniel Bone insists on writing her biography revealing the truth, that Joe was an imposter and that Joan was the actual writer for all of his work.

Honestly as a writer who struggles with self-worth, it was painful to see both of these people struggle to feel confident in themselves as writers, especially Joan. I was watching this movie with a friend and she told me this movie reminded her of the movie Big Eyes, which is the true story about the artist Margaret Keene and how her husband, Walter, made money off of her work and took credit for it. It was a frightening portrayal of how power can go to people’s heads and how honesty and integrity often get compromised when really good work goes commercial. Margaret valued honesty and integrity, while Walter valued profit and greed. Margaret spent long, long hours in the studio by herself in uncomfortable conditions, and when she needed to take breaks, Walter, driven by the pursuit for wealth and fame, only made her work harder so that he could play the salesman and pretend he was the one doing all the work even though he was a total fraud for taking credit for Margaret’s work. I think the flashbacks in The Wife sat with me, because at the time Margaret was a young undergraduate English student at Smith College in 1958. She thought her professor, Joe Castleman, genuinely liked her work but in honesty he just wanted to sleep with her even when he was already married and with kids. When he gets fired from Smith for sexual misconduct, he blames his failure on Joan and gets upset when she tells him that a draft of a novel he wrote needs improvement. The movie clearly shows how deep down Joe struggles with self-worth and to make himself feel better he takes his anger at falling short on Joan, lashing out at her when she tells him that the characters in his writing fall flat and threatening to divorce her unless she tells him he is a good writer. He says if he doesn’t make it as a writer, he is going to have to go back to teaching as a professor at a “second-rate” school and making the brisket.

At the time female writers were not respected, and Joan finds this truth out right from the get-go when she meets Elaine Mozell, a writer who visits Smith to talk to the English students in Joe’s class. When Joan meets Elaine and asks her about what it will take to have a literary career, Elaine crushes her dreams with a bitter smile, telling her to not become a writer because men don’t care about women writers and that her work won’t get published. Of course, because she didn’t have any mentors who could encourage her to weather the ups and downs of a literary career, and because the few writers she did meet gave her soul-crushing advice, Joan blurts aloud to Joe after her gets angry with her feedback that she will never become a writer and will never be as good as him. She does this because she doesn’t want Joe to leave her, so as the movie flashes back to the present, I saw how she stayed trapped in this really toxic marriage for many years and was silent about it because she wanted to protect her privacy. I don’t blame her, because talking about the abuse one has dealt with for years in a relationship is never easy and Joan wanted to keep her private life out of the public eye. But Nathaniel doesn’t see it that way. He meets with Joan for coffee and tells her that he did a lot of digging and found her writing in the Smith College archives and tells her that she is a much better writer than Joe and that she shouldn’t let him get credit for it. However, Joan stands her ground and refuses to let Nathaniel publish it. Even when he tries to butter her up and flirt with her, she doesn’t let him and tells Nathaniel to be respectful of her boundaries and not go through with this biography. Even after Joe dies of a heart attack, Nathaniel approaches Joan on the flight back from Stockholm and while he expresses his condolences, she knows he hasn’t forgotten about wanting to write that biography about Joe, so she tells Nathaniel that if he writes anything slanderous about Joe she will sue him. David is confused as to why his mom won’t tell the truth about what happened, but Joan tells him that instead of letting someone leak information about her private life and her marriage to Joe, violating her privacy, she is going to tell David and his sister everything that happened when they get home.

Of course, during the course of the movie Nathaniel doesn’t take no for an answer, and finds another opportunity to make the story known. In a later scene, David, who is Joan and Joe’s son and a writer himself, has Joe read a story he has been working on. Early in the movie, when they are celebrating Joe’s success, David approaches his dad to ask him for feedback about the story he is working on. David wants approval, but Joe continuously avoids the subject because he doesn’t want to hurt David’s feelings. When he is finally honest with David about what he thinks of his writing, David is hurt. Joe thinks that David’s writing has too many tropes, but I think he is unaware that David’s story is very much in line with the real-life dynamics between his parents. Joe gets up and leaves after he and David argue, and David remains in the bar feeling hurt and resentful. Nathaniel Bone approaches David and while we don’t see the full dialogue, it is implied that Nathaniel is dishing out the dirt on David’s dad and his mistreatment of Joan and dishonesty with his writing. In another scene, David is in the limo with his mom and dad and again, when David tries to bring up the story he wrote and his aspirations as a writer, Joe shuts him down. Joan thinks Joe should give David some approval and at least acknowledge his son’s dreams of becoming an author, and tells Joe that everyone wants approval, including him, but Joe doesn’t listen to her and says that he thinks David needs to learn to grow up and that he won’t make it in the writing field if he wants praise and approval from people. However, as a young man, Joe wanted that same approval from his wife. He couldn’t stand to be told his writing wasn’t good enough, and I think because he was such a distinguished professor at Smith, which at the time was an Ivy League school, he felt that prestige and title defined his worth, so he could treat people however they wanted. Because he craved that approval, he got upset when he didn’t get it in the ways he wanted.

Honestly, I can kind of relate because looking back, I often based my self-worth on my achievements, whether academic, music, or writing. And when I got praise and approval I felt pretty good about myself, but when I was alone dealing with my failures or when I got a rejection email back from the orchestra I auditioned for, or when I didn’t get the approval I wanted as a writer or musician I got really upset and started to think less of myself. I think that’s why I feel fortunate to have a religion or spiritual practice to help me ground my self-worth into something other than my external achievements. I’m not saying I am above awards or praise, but through practicing Buddhism I have realized that my self-worth comes from within me, and that whether I experience successes or failures along the path of this career I can remember that I am enough. It is a daily practice for me to awaken to that self-worth but it has been an immensely rewarding process and I have grown so much from learning how to bounce back from failure, write in my authentic voice and make efforts in my writing and music regardless of whether people are watching. I’m still getting over the fear of failure and rejection and not getting approval because I think like Joan said, wanting approval is human. And Brene Brown said in a documentary called The Call to Courage, which I watched on Netflix last year, said that even when people think “Oh, I don’t care what others think,” it is easier said than done because we are hardwired to care what others think of us.

When Joe gets the approval he wants from winning the Nobel Prize, before he receives the award, Joan tells him to please not mention her in his acceptance speech. Joe thinks she should be thanked, but Joan doesn’t agree. However, he doesn’t listen and ends up thanking her in his acceptance speech. Joan is upset and leaves the ceremony, and Joe chases after her, asking her why she is leaving. In the car, Joe asks Joan why she is upset with him, and Joan tells him the truth about their marriage, remembering how he took credit for her work for so many years, as well as his numerous affairs with other women and his mistreatment of their son David. He angrily throws the Nobel Prize at her, acting as if she needs it more than he does if she is so angry at him, but she refuses to take it, and so he throws it out the window. The prize is returned back to them, but that scene really showed me how all this pain and resentment and anger built up in Joan and Joe’s lives and exploded at this moment. Earlier, David comes into the room smelling of weed, and Joan and Joe find out that David had been talking with Nathaniel and that Nathaniel told him about Joe taking credit for Joan’s writing during their marriage. David tells his parents how angry he is that they kept these truths from him as a child, and there is a flashback to where Joan and Joe are in their home office and Joan is sitting at a desk and writing the novel that Joe would later take all the credit for. When David asks what they are doing and why he doesn’t get to spend time with his mom, Joe picks him up and takes him out of the room, David yelling and calling for his mom and Joan looking with a pained expression, knowing how much control Joe is exerting over her life to the point where she can’t hang out with her son because she is doing his dad’s dirty work of writing a well-written novel, in her own voice, that Joe will take credit for.

A Funny Little Love Affair with Southern Cooking

Currently I am reading a novel by Donna Tartt called The Little Friend. It came out in 2002 and honestly I have trying to read this novel for a while. Mainly because the cover looked really intriguing, so haunting and mysterious. It shows a close-up of an old-style-looking doll whose eye is looking to the side in a worried expression. The novel is about a young woman named Harriet who is still grappling with the death of her brother, Robin, after he was found hanging dead from a tree when he was a child. Harriet asks around about his murder but no one seems to know what to tell her. The novel takes place in Mississippi in the 1970s, and as I was reading it for some reason the idea of Southern cooking came up. It is totally random, but I kept thinking about Southern cooking, and it reminded me of Paula Deen. As a child I loved watching Paula Deen’s cooking on the Food Network. She had this one recipe I was obsessed with called Not Your Mama’s Banana Pudding, and in my pre-vegan days I craved some of this banana pudding. I was quite fortunate a few years down the road to have joined a volunteer orchestra because one of the moms of the participants sold this delicious banana pudding in these tubs. It was a delicious creamy yellow mixture of banana pudding, topped with Nilla wafers and whipped cream, that had me craving at least ten tubs if I had my druthers and could buy all the banana pudding in the world. It was pure goodness, and of course my poor vegan stomach couldn’t stomach that delicious dish anymore, but when I had it it felt like serious Southern comfort food. Also watching Paula Deen making doughnuts in the Dutch oven was a treat. I then begged my parents if I could make doughnuts in the Dutch oven. I can’t remember if I even went through with that plan, but it was a great idea while it lasted.

And in all honesty my vegan ass still loves the smell of Southern fried chicken and other Southern foods. Even if I can’t eat them. Hearing the sizzle of the drumsticks as they hit the deep fryer, tasting the key lime pie in that little Flying Fish diner in Arkansas as I paused to make room for my stomach, that fried catfish po’boy dunked in tartar sauce digesting itself in my stomach. Smelling that spicy sizzle of steaming crayfish piled high atop a mountain of butter-drenched corn-on-the-cob. At least I still can eat things like grits, cornbread and collard greens. You can never go wrong with those. And I love to put maple syrup on my grits, and vegan butter. I used to put veggie sausages but then I found out that the veggie sausages had egg whites in them, so I stopped eating them. My favorite Southern favorite? Eggs and biscuits. Of course, it’s not an exclusive Southern favorite because plenty of people in the West, East, and North eat eggs and biscuits, but somehow it just always made me feel Southern.

Of course, overtime and after a much-needed continuous education about racism and antebellum slavery (sorry, Paula Deen), I have had to reform my love affair for Southern food and the South. But even with my reforming education and changing perspective I still savor the delectable creaminess of piping hot 20-minute Quaker grits on a Sunday morning, rivers of melted butter and sugary maple syrup traversing those mountains of white hominy. I still love a good vegan version of country fried steak at the vegan diner in Chicago. I still chow down on collard greens and fluffy cornbread even without the eggs in it. I’m just gonna try to be more woke while I eat them.