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Movie Review: A Ghost Story

Written on March 4, 2019

Whew. It is late at night and the tears and snot are still dried on my face after watching A Ghost Story, a beautiful film written and directed by David Lowery. It stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck as a young couple, named C and M respectively, who experience a deep loss when C dies in a car accident. C comes back to life as a ghost and remains in the house where he and M used to live when he was alive. I don’t know what it is about A24 films, but I have yet to see a film released or produced by A24 that I didn’t like. Lady Bird, Moonlight, Obvious Child, The Lobster, Room. And now, A Ghost Story, a beautiful reflective tale about how we cope with grief and memory. I’m not surprised that this indie production company has received 25 Academy Award nominations for its films and won Academy Awards for six of its films.

First and foremost, what makes the film so incredible is its lack of noises. Since it’s no longer in theaters, I suggest you watch it wearing headphones because the noises are often muffled and for the most part, there is a significant lack of dialogue, even more so than The Lobster. The film relies on a lack of noise in order to properly help us reflect on the subject matter. It may seem silly at first that Casey Affleck is walking around wearing a large white sheet, almost child-like in nature. (remember the old clichés about kids wearing white sheets on Halloween?) However, I remember C’s body lying limp on the wheel of the car after he crashes and dies, and then had to remind myself that the ghost C was looking back on his life after his death. It reminded me of The Lovely Bones, a haunting novel by Alice Sebold about a girl who is raped and murdered and watches from her personal Heaven as her friends and family struggle to cope with her death.

One example in which silence is a powerful tool for eliciting emotion from the audience is a scene in the film in which M is eating a pie that a real estate agent gave her to send condolences for C’s death in the car crash. The scene lasts for a good 5-10 minutes, but it disturbs you gradually until you’re sitting there crying with her. You see her throw the note in the trash, and then eat the pie, then gradually she furiously digs her fork into it until, five minutes in, we see her eat the pie in silence from the side and slowly she breaks down into tears while C, the ghost, just stands and watches as an invisible spirit. This was the moment when I finally broke down during the film and couldn’t stop crying afterwards. This scene, although one of many deep scenes in the movie, really hits you if you stop everything and look closely. It is an incredibly painful moment to watch her grief just shatter her slowly from inside, but the entire silence of that scene allows the viewer to really see the psychological impact that grief can have on our physical and emotional well-being. The absence of dialogue was perfect because we get to focus on M’s facial expressions and how they alone convey the frustration and pain and other indescribable emotions that she feels after C’s death.

Another scene that was extremely important to the film was when C walks into a room of the house where a bunch of random strangers are having a house party, and one of the people there gives a monologue about faith and forgetting. This person talks about Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and says that yeah, sure, “we build our legacy piece by piece, and maybe the whole world remembers you, or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you’re still around after you’re gone.” The overall monologue is very dark and cynical and basically says that someone can write a book, record a song or do anything to leave their children and their children’s children for years to come, but they, like everyone else, are going to pass away someday and will no longer be able to enjoy the legacy that person left, like with Beethoven. The guy says that Beethoven passed away and people still listen to his music, but in the long run, his legacy doesn’t have any meaning in and of itself and that leaving a legacy is essentially hopeless. Basically, the guy is saying, people forget about you after you die, even when you leave a long legacy (I’m pretty sure C was the one messing with the lightbulb above the dude’s head as a way of saying “Forget? You wanna bet?”).

While it is true that humans are mortal and we won’t get to enjoy the art, books, movies and music that someone leaves behind after we ourselves die, what matters is the fact that people, when they are alive we will never forget how they made us feel, and clearly C made M feel so much even if she might not remember everything that happened during their time together. When C looks back on his past self with M, he shows both the good times and the rocky times of their marriage, and as we see with the pie eating scene and further scenes with M coping with C’s death, he made a significant impact on her.

Overall, this film requires a lot of patience. They could have made C a cartoonish ghost that says cliched lines and goes “BOOOO! I’m a ghost!” But they didn’t. In fact, they turned the ghost caricature on its head by showing how C suffers so much psychologically, mentally and spiritually when he realizes that his wife has moved on after his death, that the house no longer will be the same, that different people move in, and the whole time this happens he just wants to be seen, heard, even do things over again in his life. However, the thing that is most painful about this film is that C is a ghost and thus no one can physically see him unless he makes things move without them actually seeing him. In a haunting but very sad scene, he sees a single mom move into the house with her two kids, and he watches them have a wonderful time together eating breakfast, playing toys and celebrating Christmas. This probably makes C sad because he didn’t have any kids with M before he died, and so he opens and closes doors, but ends up scaring the kids and the mom, and because he is frustrated with not being seen, smashes all the plates and cups in their cupboard. I cried because C is trying to deal with all of these changes and it’s just really hard for him because he just wanted a normal life with M and now it’s gone. C’s silence speaks volumes in and of itself, and that’s what makes the film so unique. He finds another ghost who lives in the house next door to his, and they communicate with each other through their prolonged eye contact, and this prolonged eye contact is translated into literal subtitles, a language that only they can understand, a language of grief.

Overall, this film, like The Lobster, is a film I will never forget. I don’t think I can see it twice because I cried throughout the movie and don’t think I can take crying anymore. It just reminded me to appreciate people while they are still alive and also celebrate someone’s life and appreciate them even after they pass away. I have been to quite a few memorial services for people, and while I am sad, I appreciate the times I spent with that person. The film shows that change is constant and while it’s hard to move on, you have to do it in order to keep living. It was a tough message to swallow throughout the film, but it needed to be said. Like I said earlier, it takes a lot of patience to admire and appreciate the film because it goes against traditional ghost stories and redefines the meaning of a “ghost story.” Death is a scary topic, and no amount of cartoon ghosts is going to fix that. But the film’s reflection of death is what makes it so haunting and yet so incredibly poignant. It is emotionally hard to process, but it is definitely worth a watch.

A Ghost Story (2017). 1 hr. 32 min. Rated R for brief language and a disturbing image.

Movie Review: The Lobster (continued)

March 3, 2019

So I was mulling over this film last night because I needed more time to think about the film, and it made me think of animal symbolism. In the show Brooklyn 99, there is one episode where Gina Linetti, the goofy sarcastic office manager of the 99, says that her chosen animal used to be the wolf, but after sleeping with her coworker Charles, she feels so ashamed that she goes around the office wearing a sweater with a picture of a naked mole rat on it (when she wore it, I thought about Rufus, the naked mole rat in the show Kim Possible) and adopts it as her chosen animal (3/27/21 edit: she calls it her spirit animal but I read an article talking about the misuse of “spirit animal” by non-Indigenous people and reading it reminded me to be careful about the way I use language, so I recognize I still have a lot to learn. The article can be found here)

The Lobster takes the question, “If you could be an animal what would you be?” and makes it literally a question that people must ask themselves if they cannot find someone to love within such a short time. Also I had to develop a strong stomach because I consider myself an animal rights advocate, and seeing Jacqueline Abrahams shoot the donkey at the beginning of the film was hard to watch, and I had to tell myself, It’s just a movie. Not all films are going to have the “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” disclaimer in the end credits. Indeed, while watching the end credits I found myself waiting for the four minutes they rolled to say that disclaimer as film companies have done for previous films I saw in which animals were depicted in scenes of torture or some other inhumane violence. However, I saw no such thing. I was wondering, Wait, so that donkey at the beginning was actually killed? And the heartless woman (yes, her character lacks so much backstory that she is in fact called the heartless woman as her character role) actually killed that dog (aka David’s brother, who couldn’t find a partner within 45 days)? And wait, those rabbits that David takes to Shortsighted Woman were actually dripping blood?

I think what’s interesting about this film is that even without making an explicit commentary on the treatment of non-human animals, it does in a way make such a commentary because turning into a non-human animal such as a dog or a lobster is seen as punishment that humans should avoid if they want to live their fullest lives. However, as we find out later in the film, David and Short-Sighted Woman (who by this point in the film has been blinded as punishment for wanting to fall in love with David) are no happier being humans than they would be as non-human animals. It also seems that they wouldn’t be happier being animals, either, because these animals end up getting either killed for merciless fun or for food. So basically humans and non-humans are caught between a rock and a hard place, and there’s no hope for salvation for either party (there are still living animals roaming around the Loner forest in the film, but they probably don’t get to live long either before turning into someone’s food.)

And then I saw the film feature “Making of The Lobster” and understood why the harm-to-animals disclaimer probably went unused in the credits. The actors revealed that they had to do a lot of uncomfortable stuff during the film’s production, and this was very hard for them to process. The actress who plays The Heartless Woman, Angeliki Papoulia, said herself that working with Yorgos was challenging because he had them go outside their comfort zone to shoot these scenes, but in retrospect it really helped her improve her acting skills because she was able to take on demanding acting work, and a lot of times, some of the best films require actors to go outside of what they traditionally do. Colin Farrell, who plays David, says he has starred in movies where people don’t really care about the film afterwards, but this film, The Lobster, really makes people think long after the credits roll. There’s no self-awareness or stream of consciousness going through David’s head, he just goes with what society tells him should be done because he’s literally in danger with his life if he disobeys society. But I think the silences in the film and the lack of dialogue is what makes the film so incredible. But after seeing the film Widows, I thought, “Well, Colin has starred in other thought-provoking films. It’s just that in The Lobster, he plays this extremely vulnerable character who isn’t in a position of power.” I last saw him play men in positions of power; in the 2017 drama Roman J. Israel, Esq. he plays a lawyer who hires a civil rights attorney to work for his firm. He talks a lot and assumes an air of manliness in his powerful-looking suit and legal jargon. In the 2018 heist film Widows, he plays a corrupt politician named Jack Mulligan who says he’s going to support young Black women’s businesses and help the low-income communities of Chicago, and yet his idealism doesn’t match up with the fact that he doesn’t genuinely care about the Black community and only really wants the campaign money for himself. While these films were thought-provoking, they didn’t stress me out as much as The Lobster did because Colin Farrell’s characters in Widows and Roman J. Israel, Esq. are rooted in real life. You’re going to have attorneys and you’re also going to have corrupt politicians. These people exist. However, a society in which this lonely man has to turn into an animal if he doesn’t find a partner is scary, and it’s something that we’ve never really heard of happening before. Also this film puts Colin at the front and center of the film, while Widows and Roman J. Israel, Esq. have him playing supporting roles, so you really get to see how much this dystopian world is messing with his mind, body and soul.

I am really glad I watched the behind-the-scenes special after the film. Not only did it relieve me a little bit of the film’s stressful nature, but it allowed me insight into why Yorgos had people play such disturbing roles. Yorgos kept a certain distance from the actors and used long lens and wide angles to give a sort of space for the actors to really embody these unemotional but still human characters. This distance allows the script and the structure of the film to preserve its sensitive nature. Even with the lack of backstory for the characters, as well as melodrama and emotion, the film is still incredibly poignant and conveys a sense of deep isolation and loneliness without outwardly referring to it. In the forest, for example, The Loners have a silent dance party in which they dance alone with their headphones on. This is actually a thing, and it allows the Loners time for themselves. However, when you think about how the Loners can’t actually fall in love with each other, the idea of a silent dance party has a certain level of discomfort to it, unlike real life, where people can go to these silent dance parties and still go out and love who they want. (4/1/21: also, I looked up what these parties actually looked like because I was curious and they are funny enough anything but silent)

The lack of lights also conveys the overall dark tone of the film; it’s not just the forest that is darkly lit but also in the hotel the lighting is dim and the colors of the upholstery and furniture (as well as the outside environment) are dull. Jacqueline Abrahams, who not only shot the donkey at the beginning but was also the film’s production designer, said that the hotel felt like a prison, but the point was to contrast the hotel with other places such as the forest and the city in which the Loner Leader takes the Loners to go shopping. The simplicity of these places shows how rigid the customs are in this futuristic society. The American actor John C. Reilly, who plays Robert in the movie, said that it was actually a beautiful opportunity for the actors because they got to film at the Parknasilla Hotel and Resort, as well as the Dromore Woods in Coillte Teoranta, all in Ireland (he called it a “summer film camp for actors.”) Indeed, even though the film is grim in tone, it is just so organic, and the actors and producers who worked with Yorgos on the film said he didn’t care if the actors weren’t perfect; he just wanted them to play the roles even after just a couple of takes. The actors didn’t have to wait until the lighting was perfect, there was no stop-and-start of the filming, just a couple of rehearsals, then shooting the film. Yorgos’ use of mostly non-professional actors for the film really allowed him to preserve the film in its originality rather than having seasoned actors who would tell Yorgos, “Oh, I couldn’t do that, that’s not the kind of acting I usually do.” This is pretty rare for films because, this is just my amateur assumption, it seems that most directors would do multiple rehearsals before actually shooting the film.

Although I must say, props to the actors for keeping such straight faces throughout the film; there is little smiling that goes on, and the world these characters find themselves in is rather absurd (it is categorized as an absurdist film, and absurdist films typically portray characters’ experiences in very hopeless situations where they can’t find any reason to live for its own sake, and are full of meaningless events to convey the hopelessness of the situation.) Then again, Yorgos wants viewers to think for themselves about the actions and characteristics of the film’s characters, so he doesn’t impose any prior judgment on the characters. The film is one of the few I’ve seen that doesn’t really have any “likeable” characters because even the ones we think are sweet and vulnerable become conditioned to be just as cold and distant as the people they are with. David, for instance, wishes nothing but pain and misery on a woman who injures herself very badly, and he just stares as The Heartless Woman chokes on an olive. Because we don’t really see him develop in any way throughout the film (aka he just stays miserable the whole time) we as the viewer are left to judge for ourselves what kind of person David is and what purpose he had saying things that normally would be considered quite cruel. David doesn’t really have a choice though in what he says because he is literally hanging on for his life.

Another thing I thought while watching this film was the hotel options for residents. I used to work at the front desk of a hotel and didn’t pay much mind to the options of room sizes for guests. However, after watching this film, I have reflected more on my brief time working at the hotel and never understood how much I took this info about hotel sizes and rooms for singles, couples and families for granted. As I discussed earlier, the hotel is very austere, especially for singles. The wardrobe is monotone, residents get punished for doing things forbidden in the rules, and they can only choose between two sexual orientations. Couples get to enjoy things that singles don’t get to do and they enjoy upgraded room sizes. Their wake-up times and everyday schedules are heavily structured, but in real life the wake-up is never forced and the hotel staff don’t care what time you check out or what time you go to breakfast. In the film the hotel manager doesn’t care what the residents’ names are and the waitstaff address them by their room numbers. Even the couples’ lives are subject to nosy investigation at the hands of the waitstaff and management; they are expected to stick together as a couple, and even when David and Short-Sighted Woman are in the city mall and Short-Sighted Woman wanders off, a security guard asks David if he has identification on him to prove he is married and not just wandering around (they profiled a woman earlier seen by herself.)

Overall, very excellent film with a brilliant social commentary about love, marriage, and the stigma around being single. It was one of those films where it was hard for me to articulate my thoughts about the film in a cohesive way because there are so many layers to it (similar to Sorry to Bother You, another very layered film), but I think that’s what makes the film so excellent. I’ll probably have more thoughts about the film come up and it will be hard for me to adequately convey them in words. The trailer for the film might help sum up all my feelings about it because I still cannot convey how this film really felt for me in words even after writing it.

The Lobster. 2015. 1 hr 59 m. Rated R for sexual content, including dialogue, and some violence.

Dear Alicia

Alicia, I know you want to speak

About the things that are bothering you

Like the breakup you had a while back

It left you in the black

Don’t feel bad about it

It’s the last thing I want from a clever sweet but hurting

Girl such as yourself

Move on I want to tell you but you don’t

Want to listen you just want to ignore me

I’m sorry if you feel hurt

When I tell you to stay strong

In your struggles with addiction, confliction and a depiction

Of resentment that eats you alive every single waking hour

I know I can do better

I know you can wash away the pain and get help

I know I can

So please let me I promise I will change for the better

Let me still be your friend

If you need help

If you need a friend other than the broken

Shattered bottle, the remains of a night of heavy drinking

And heavy heartache, accompanied by a dark disturbing demon

That hissed insidiously you weren’t good enough, that you should leave the world

And never come back.

Give the finger to that voice inside your head telling you to quit

Raise that finger hi like pi in the sky

The voice, the nasty devil inside your mind who screams and screams when you’re not perfect

It exists, I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t, but

Seriously it can’t tell you how to live your life

It simply cannot. 

I know getting help is hard

But I will be there

To soothe your pain, the heartless demon that 

Worms like a bitter Applewood wormwood maggot inside your beautiful soul

I want to just sit and listen in complete quiet and silence 

To your expression of grief as the tears glisten

On your puffy face as you wipe away the last of your tears

So I can be, in the end, a better friend.

The Girl (inspired by the 2018 film A Star is Born)

She wanted more

She was hurting inside

The girl wanted more of this 21st century

Existence she was living

She went through drink after drink

But couldn’t think about life without hurting inside

The world felt like too much

But she wanted a sense of deeper purpose

A sense of beauty

She felt the world swallowing her up

This sense of purpose she felt was higher

She wanted to go deeper

She wanted to go higher

Than the sky’s the limit that she heard

On  the lips of lover, teachers, fathers, breathers every day

She wanted to dig deep into the flesh

Of the public consciousness to have

These heavy breathing conversations 

About mental illness, loneliness and getting help

About stigma and its psychological

Emotional destructive physical toll

She knew others wanted to talk about it

But were just keeping it inside themselves

In the modern world of emotionless texts and emails

She was losing touch with not just the people

Around her but also with her deepest sense of self

So she created, and dreamed, and created, and dreamed

And created, and while the daily act of divine creation, inspiration

Pre-sti-di-gi-ta-tion

Didn’t get rid of her hurt completely

It opened up a medium for her to have

Those tough-as-nails conversations about that

Eighty ton Eeyore sitting alone in the corner and take Prozac for the dark cloud

Of numbness and meaninglessness that hung over his head.

Movie Review: The Lobster

Originally written on March 2, 2019

After director Yorgos Lanthimos’ film The Favourite won Olivia Colman an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, I thought I should see some of her previous films to get ready for The Favourite. Sometimes filmmakers have a particular style of making their movies, so it usually helps me to see what other work someone has done before I go see more of their recent work. This is definitely one of those films where it didn’t hurt to read a Wikipedia plot summary of the film while trying to follow along with it. Yes, it is confusing. Yes, it is rather outlandish. Yes, it is a dark comedy. But it is one of those films that will stay with you for a long time.

Earlier I reviewed the romantic comedy How to Be Single. For those who haven’t seen it, it is absolutely hilarious. It also has a sweet message that being single doesn’t need to be a bad thing and can even give individuals a chance to discover their purpose in life, or if you are Rebel Wilson’s character Robin, have fun with no regrets. It is the perfect Valentine’s Day movie to watch for anyone, especially if you are single. Even though some of the moments are genuinely sad, the film is light-hearted and you can probably watch it before going to bed at night and not have nightmares. I laughed a lot and was able to go to sleep with good dreams about sunshine and rainbows (not really but hopefully you get what I mean.)

The Lobster, however, is anything but a celebratory film. Unlike How to Be Single, it is completely and utterly dark and while I was laughing at the sheer absurdity of everything at the beginning I stopped laughing by the middle of the film because it got dark real fast. I even started thinking, “Wow, I should have watched The Lobster first, and then watched How to Be Single so I could sleep at night.” However, I am glad I saw it because it is, in all seriousness, a film that we should genuinely promote for Singles Awareness Day. Why? Because it basically centers around a dystopian society where singles actually face life-threatening discrimination and being a couple is the norm. While How to Be Single celebrates friendship, romance and sex is all shapes and sizes, The Lobster presents a more complicated discussion about love in the 21st century, one that is rather bleak but needs to be discussed.

The Lobster follows a recently divorced man named David who is given 45 days to find a life partner or else get transformed into a non-human animal of his choice. When he checks into the hotel, the clerk gives him only two options: either identify as straight or gay. Even though David has sexual encounters with both men and women, bisexuality is not one of the options he can choose, so he chooses the straight option for when he has to find a partner (he can’t even half size shoes because the hotel only has whole-number sizes.) His brother got turned into a dog because he couldn’t find a partner within the 45 day period, and goes everywhere with David. The hotel manager (played scarily well by Olivia Colman) comes into his room with her partner and tells David the rules about staying at the hotel. When she tells him he must choose an animal that he’ll be turned into if he doesn’t find a woman to marry within the 45-day period, he chooses the lobster because according to him, lobsters “live 100 years, are blue-blooded like aristocrats and stay fertile all their lives,” and that he, like lobsters, loves the sea and swimming. The hotel manager approves of his choice for the animal because most people choose to be transformed as dogs.

The rules of the hotel are laughable at first, but as you get further into the film you realize how messed-up the place actually is. Residents cannot masturbate, use couples-only facilities or play sports meant for couples. In each person’s room there is a tranquilizer gun mounted on the wall, as well as other austere items in the room, not to mention the very monotonous uniform that male and female residents must wear out and about during dances. Each person is given a gun because the hotel stages daily hunts where the residents go out and hunt anyone who is a “loner” and bring their bodies back to the hotel so they can be conditioned to find a partner and not be turned into non-human animals. For every loner the resident kills, he or she gets to live an extra day as a human being. Singles sit at perfectly arranged tables all by themselves next to one another because they don’t have a marriage partner to sit across from them. David wakes up to a creepy Alexa-like voice every morning that tells him how many days he has left before he gets transformed into a lobster.

What really strikes me about this film is the explicit stigma against single people. All of the newly arrived single people to the hotel are forced to get up in front of an audience and talk about their backstories that may have factored in them being single for so long. The waitstaff also mime for the audience how single people won’t get help from anyone if they choke on their food by accident or encounter a serial rapist, but that if in a couple they have less danger coming to them because someone (in most cases a man) is protecting them from this danger, and thus single people should focus on finding a partner rather than musing about how they would like to spend their last day as a human being. David is sitting with two of his new friends Robert (John C Reilly) and John (Ben Winshaw), and John reveals to them what the hotel actually does to single people who don’t succeed in finding a partner by the time 45 days is up. Although I won’t delve into the process here, it being quite unpleasant and graphic, I will say this: in the dystopian world Lanthimos has created in The Lobster, single people are no more than wastes of space and need to conform to societal norms by finding a companion in order to feel fulfilled instead of like wastes of space, otherwise they and their vital organs hold no meaningful value to this society except for when there are no blood donors and they need blood donated to hospitals.

It reminded me of the novel (and movie adaptation) Never Let Me Go, where Ruth, Tommy and Kathy are organ donors and nothing else in terms of how they bring value to society, and they have no choice but to “complete,” or die, after their organs are donated. They go to a boarding school where they are incredibly gifted and any work that the headmistress considers exceptional goes in her gallery. Tommy becomes extremely discouraged when the teachers don’t value his art as highly as they do the other students’ artworks and he acts out. Even though his teacher at first tells him it’s fine to be different and not compare himself to the other kids, she tells him she was wrong years later, and he becomes more resentful later on about his lack of creativity. However, as they get older, Ruth, Tommy and Kathy realize that their lives are short and try everything to escape the draconian society that doesn’t value children’s ideas and instead controls their every move throughout their lives, to no avail. It is a doom-and-gloom book and the movie had me crying so much, but like The Lobster, it’s one of those emotionally difficult films where you need to have a long discussion with someone about it rather than see it by yourself and have to carry that feeling of heaviness with you when you go to work or do anything else.

One of the most disturbing scenes is the hunting scene, when the hotel residents have to shoot any loners in the forest and bring their bodies back to the hotel. It is shown in slow motion with quiet music playing in the background, but this is what makes the scene so unsettling. There is no dialogue, just slo-mo shots of Colin Firth and John C. Reilly attacking people in a dark forest at night after they just spent time at an elegant dance in the hotel. This scene really embodies the discrimination that singles face in the film, but it’s not like the loners in the forest feel bad about what they’re doing. David, after escaping into the forest after a heartless woman he meets kills his brother (the dog named Bob), says that he would rather be a loner than be back at the hotel because he can listen to music, reflect on his own and just be his own person. However, the loners aren’t just vegging out for the fun of it; like the hotel, there are strict rules, namely no flirting. The leaders of the loners, played brilliantly by Lea Seydoux, says that there is severe punishment for flirting between loners, and has two loners punished in a disturbing and painful way for flirting with one another. However, David meets a woman called Short-Sighted Woman, who also narrates the film (played by Rachel Weisz. The last film I saw her in was the sweet comedy About a Boy), and struggles with his genuine feelings about her. When the waitstaff and loner leader find out about Short-Sighted Woman and David’s plans to run away together, Short-Sighted Woman is blinded as punishment. This shows how controlling everything is in the society depicted in the film.

Another deep scene is when a young blonde woman doesn’t find a partner within the 45 day period and meets in the manager’s office to tell her what she would like to do on her last day as a human being. Her friend reads her a letter she wrote about how she is sorry how no one wanted to be her friend’s life partner even though she is very pretty and continues to ramble on about how close they were as friends and how she is going to think of her when she has new friends and her new husband (unlike traditional marriages, a couple finds each other, the manager announces their marriage, and they get children to help them resolve any conflicts they cannot resolve themselves as reasonable adults.) Finally the young blonde woman slaps her friend to get her to stop talking so she can get right to the point and tell the manager what she’s doing on the last day. Hearing the girl read this note we may think, “Wow that was such a cruel note and this girl is a terrible friend,” but as we reflect on the film we realize how deeply shame is imposed on people who can’t find companions and how singles are made to feel bad about themselves for not finding love. There is no crying between these two young women, just an emotionless interaction before the single girl gets turned into a pony.

Ah, no…I’m fading. I’m going to write more of this review tomorrow in a part 2 because I’m beat and need some rest. Will continue tomorrow.

Lunch Break

March 16, 2021
I scan news story after every news story
Reading about the murder of 
Six Asian women in Atlanta 
My heart gets heavy 
As I think about my sangha community 
Of BIPOC folx
I bottle the anger inside of me
Keep filling the glass
Until it threatens to overflow
I have to release that rage
Let it off 
But how can I
When I feel so much numbness, pain, anxiety, depression
Hopelessness about the state of the world
And the pervasiveness of a system
That has disenfranchised the marginalized
For far too long?

March 16 
Kosen-Rufu Day
A day when our second Soka Gakkai president
Josei Toda
Passed the baton to the youth
So they could fight against injustice
And fight for a more peaceful society
After his passing
March 16
A day where I and my sangha community of believers
Refreshed our vow for kosen rufu
Was a day of violence, hurt, trauma 
I remember my vow for kosen-rufu
When I think of the hate incident 
And countless other hate incidents
That have brutalized Asian and Pacific Islander communities 
For far too long  

Lunch time
I gather my things
Get in the car 
Shut the door
And just start chanting 
Nam myoho renge kyo
Nam myoho renge kyo
Nam myoho renge kyo
Each syllable as I repeat the words
Rolls off my tongue
I revive my life
Through each pronunciation 
Of a mantra whose roots are in
Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese
Nam = devotion
I dedicate myself to this life affirming philosophy
That teaches each person, no matter their color, creed, race, sexuality, gender, dis/ability, political affiliation
Is a Buddha 
A Buddha endowed 
From time without beginning
For the eternity of life
From past, present and future life cycles
With boundless wisdom, courage, compassion and life force
Myo= life and ho= death
Myoho= Mystic Law, oneness of life and death
I cannot see this law tangibly
But it runs through every current of my being
Reviving me 
Inspiring me
Renge= simultaneity of cause and effect
I make the cause to channel my anger
Into my prayer
And each time I recite the words
I awaken to the power in my life
Without anyone else telling me 
Or having to wait on someone to tell me I'm dope
Sutra = teaching through one's voice
I recite the entirety of this beautiful Mahayana teaching
The Lotus Sutra
When I recite the beautiful song
Of my life, my Buddha nature

I chant to bring forth this well
To tap into the well and bring forth this boundless supply
of nourishing freshwater
The elixir of life that keeps me going every day.
I remember that within my anger is 
The beautiful world of Buddhahood
The mutual possession of the Ten Worlds 
Even the mind state of hell I'm roasting in 
Can be the world of Tranquil Light
Even the rage and frustration I feel
Can have the seed of Buddhahood
When I give life and creativity to that anger
To speak out against injustice
In my own unique way
Peach, cherry, plum, damson.   


As the words roll off my tongue
And into the universe
As I connect with the higher power of myself
And with the galaxies, sun, stars, moon, grass, trees, flora, fauna 
Tears pool in my eyes 
And run like rivers down my face
As I think about the lives lost 
To disgusting prejudice, hatred, a lack of respect for the dignity of life
A boulder forms in my throat
And my shoulders shake
Tiny earthquakes 
My chanting rocks harder than any earthquake though
When I resolve as my prayer gets stronger and stronger
To eradicate the violence and misery in the world
By eradicating the violence and misery in myself
I remember in 2001 celebrating Victory over Violence
with my sangha community 
And resolving to be the change in my own life
So I can be the change in the world

To see the Buddhahood in others
I need to see the Buddhahood in my own life
The jewel, the pearl that shines from within
I tap into my inner potential 
And chant for the lives lost in the shooting
Especially the lives of the 6 Asian women lost 
To the poisonous bullets of intersectional racism and misogyny 
I shed tears in memory 
I shed tears for their families 
I shed tears when I remember that this isn't an isolated incident
But one of several incidents of anti-Asian hatred 
That have occurred even well before the pandemic
I remember our country, despite saying all men are created equal, 
Hasn't always said the same about everyone. 
I remember my vow
To stand in solidarity with my Asian brothers, sisters, non-binary siblings 
To do my human revolution 
So I can kickstart a beautiful revolution of peace and social justice
With tears shed 
And the words nam myoho renge kyo said
I take to the pen 
And start writing.

Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo

Last night I finished Crazy Brave, a memoir by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and it honestly blew me away. Her writing just held me and held me and wouldn’t let me go until the last page. Her use of metaphor is also really powerful, and it was just such a powerful memoir, just reading about her life and how poetry was her medium of survival and resistance made me appreciate even more deeply the poetry book I read by her, She Had Some Horses. One day it was hot in my car so I sat outside on the grass and just read this book amidst nature, and Harjo’s writing took me away. Harjo’s writing is lived experience, it is lived narrative. Joy Harjo reminds me how powerful poetry and writing is in healing, in addressing collective trauma across generations. I’m so glad that the person who told me about Joy Harjo’s She Had Some Horses also recommended this memoir because if I hadn’t read it I wouldn’t have known how amazing she is.

Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo. 2012. 169 pp.

Lunch Break/ 3 Little Robins

Written on 3/15/21 at 12:05 pm

I sit outside

Reading my Living Buddhism

I spot three robins

beautiful red breasted robins

Hopping around on the lawn

Hip hop hip hop

Peaceful as can be

As I sit under the bare branched tree

The mosquito eaters buzz around me

I soak in the azul of the beautiful sky

The sun nurtures me with

Her radiant vitamin D

The robins are so beautiful.

Ride to Work

Written on March 15, 2021

I wake up at 6
Mom makes some grits and greens
My bed is rumpled
The sheets need to be washed
I chant Nam myoho renge kyo
The story of my life
The title of my Buddhahood
The title of the story of the Universe
From time without beginning

While I dawdle on my computer
Just gotta finish this blog post
My fingers sweat with anxiety
As I clack them across the keyboard
Barely finished
Half-baked book review
But at least you finished it after
Weeks of procrastination

I pack my lunch
Spaghetti and vegetables with tomato sauce
And a banana
I grab my two masks
And go out the door
Shoot I forgot my phone
I rush back into the house
And grab it 

In my sleepy haze 
I travel down the roads of my neighborhood
Cars turn left
I turn right without looking 
Thank God it's school zone time
A car glides along 
There could have been a collision
But my mind is brainwashed
By the marijuana of sleepiness
I start chanting as my car glides
Through the quiet morning streets
And the sun bathes my eyes and face
In its radiance 

Nam myoho renge kyo
Nam myoho renge kyo
Nam myoho renge kyo
"Never seek this Gohonzon outside yourself
The Gohonzon exists only within the mortal flesh
Of us ordinary people
who embrace the Lotus Sutra 
and chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo"*
I keep this little jewel of wisdom in my 
Back pocket 
And remember that my life
I
am the Gohonzon
The embodiment of Nam myoho renge kyo
Even if I barely try to get through the day
I need not slander my Buddhahood 
If you love yourself
It's easier to love other people

As I write this poem
In the parking lot of work
In the peaceful solitude of my car
I intone the title of Buddhahood
Nam myoho renge kyo
My busy mind slows
It pumps the brakes 
To savor every honey syllable 
And my body feels like limp spaghetti
Know thyself
I sink into my greater self
And manifest it in more ways than one

When I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
I bring forth the wisdom, courage, compassion
And life force that has been the essence of my being
And the essence of others
And the essence of the universe
Since time without beginning. 

*from "The Real Aspect of the Gohonzon," page 832, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, volume 1. Soka Gakkai

Book Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

A few weeks ago I stayed up late reading this on Saturday night (thankfully I took a nap before) and honestly, reading this book felt as if I was eating a delectable hot fudge sundae (lactose-free of course, since I’m lactose-intolerant.) It’s one of those books you have to eat in small bites just as you savor the delectable hot fudge sundae. It is juicy with love affairs, gossip, religion, philosophy that you won’t want to read it quickly at all.

In particular, I really loved the edition I read (it’s the Penguin Classics one translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.) I understand that there’s a saying Don’t judge a book by its cover, but this time this cover enraptured me. It shows a young woman holding a small bouquet of purple flowers, I think they are lilacs, between her knees. I don’t know why I love that cover so much, but I guess because it has this sensual energy about it. It made me feel like, Oh yeah baby I’m reading the 19th century 50 Shades of Grey (disclaimer: I haven’t read one 50 Shades of Grey book. I’m behind the times lol) this is bad look at me I’m so bad haha. I also got this edition because several years ago I was reading Oprah’s Book Club list and this was one of the books on her list.

I was really craving more of Leo Tolstoy’s writing after reading his tome War and Peace. I bought a copy of the Signet Classics version back in my senior year of high school, but I never read it or picked it up, so it pretty much just collected a boatload of dust bunnies, unloved and unread. But during quarantine, I decided it would be the best time to read any large books (or really any books of any length) I had sitting on my shelf that I had not read yet. After reading and falling in love with War and Peace I wanted to read more writing by him, so I bought Anna Karenina. I tend to read multiple books at once, but Anna Karenina was so spellbinding that it was the only book I read for a while. The particular translation I read was excellent, just the style of writing was powerful.

I don’t really know what else to say because this book was so good and there was so much juiciness about it that I’m still trying to digest it. I’m sure I’ll come up with more ideas about it at a later time, but the writing was absolutely amazing and I really loved this book. The ending is pretty sad, but I’m not going to spoil it in case anyone hasn’t read it yet.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. 864 pp.