Baseball at the T, just short of the drain.  Dirty white lines wet with rain, smelling of ozone and cold, sharp winter.  The wind tugs at my clothes, seeping through my baggy jeans.  I see the baseball, and feel a tug.  The baseball is bravely hugging the lines, trying to hold down the center.  It’s playing a tug of war with cement and iron, refusing to be washed into the fresh snow. 

I look at the baseball, small but somehow brave.  It’s white standing out.  It’s a brief light in the heavy winter day, a beacon for the outcasts crowding around life’s thin barrier.  I want to own this moment, breathe it into my soul because the baseball is so very strong, so adamant, so noisy about its right to exist.  It sits there, a perfect sphere aganst gray cement.  I hold my breathe, almost afraid the wind will tear it away from me.

I stand above the a baseball, pointing my camera down at its simple beauty.  I crouch down, almost crawling onto the ground.  Its stitches are larger than life, like proud war wounds, like the inner monologues we try so hard to ignore.  The baseball is proud to be itself – simple, round, and white in the middle of the T. 

We are all of us fragments of a whole, drifting around, frantically looking for the better part of ourselves.  We are all of us seeking some greatness to aspire to, something clean and white and simple.  It’s so tiny, so hard to find because all around us is the dark.  All around us is the horrible blackness trying to smother the light. 

But the baseball, the beautiful, simple truth is trying to find us.  It wants to hear our cries, wants to take our pain.  But it can’t be found without feeling our hurt, our pain, our night terrors we wish to forget.  Because forgetting is a way to let the darkness in. 

I close my eyes and let the baseball fill my mind.  I let the clean white come inside me, I let it grow in my stomach.  I swallow its truth whole.  I see myself as a creature of white.  And I open my eyes, lean close to the baseball and whisper, Thank You.

“Avatar” repeats an overused and tired storyline

“Avatar” is following the current trend of all flash and no substance. Like the George Lucas “Star Wars” franchise, the film aims to rely on special effects to wow its viewers. This reliance on over-the-top theatrics seems to be insanely popular in the film industry. Movie makers are in love with 3-D and completely oblivious to a good storyline.

“Avatar” revisits a tired, overused storyline; humans wish to exploit a naive, underdeveloped species for resources. Audiences have seen this theme revisited in countless Hollywood films and literature. It’s an old standby movie directors never seem to get tired of. The problem is, however beautiful the graphics are, it never compensates for a poor script. I’m just as much a fan of sci-fi and fantasy as anyone else. But becoming obsessed with the typical storyline of human travel into outer space is a way to ignore reality. The truth is the human race has ensured it won’t go to the stars.

Human have exhausted the planet’s resources and managed to pollute the environment in the process. The polar ice caps are melting, which means our oceans are going through drastic changes. In fact, overfishing will ensure there is no seafood available for the next generation. We are literally killing our oceans. Our major religions (especially Islam and Muslims) offer an abudant supply of hate, misery, misogony, and cruel violence.

Humans can’t even figure out how to create a sound money system. We are still victims of debt. Most Americans are unemployed and can barely feed themselves. Yet people still cling to the idea of space travel being possible. It’s a refusal to admit reality.

What we need is movies which explore real, relevant issues. We don’t need yet another pretty fantasy to escape into. We need to explore the social issues causing pain and misery. We need to look out our human flaws. We don’t need to rehash recycled story lines.

All that being said I think we need periodic breaks from reality. Daydreams allow us to explore different ways of living. Fantasy can be a way to explore human feelings and dilemmas. I love writing fiction. It’s one of the most enjoyable things I do. But our society is in love with escapism. We’re in love with grand heroes magically saving the day. But the world doesn’t need a made-up hero. It needs real, informed citizens. I’m not saying every film needs to be a dry documentary. However, Hollywood needs to wake up from the 3-D stupor. We need films that are honestly exploring what it means to be a 21st century human. And “Avatar” doesn’t even come close.

Review of “A wink and a smile”

“A Wink and a Smile: The Art of Burlesque” follows 10 students in the Seattle’s Academy of Burlesque as they progress through one academic year.  The school was founded by Ms. Indigo Blue, a professional stripper who decided to teach women the art of burlesque.  The film examines how the students feel about the art of stripping and various acts in the Seattle area.

This film is a remarkable look at how women feel about the art of stripping.  The director crosses gender boundaries by examining male burlesque performers too.  The film is interesting because the womens’ feelings about burlesque are complicated by their own body image and their various cultural backgrounds.  The woman’s feelings about their naked selves are influenced by cultural backgrounds, their family’s views, and their own idea of what defines sexiness.

One Chinese woman confides how she feels unsure whether burlesque is too “white” for her to practice.  She wonders if her family would see it as the equivalent of whites putting on black face.  One woman is a 51-year-old mother who as always wanted to try burlesque.  I found her to be very inspiring because of her body confidence.

I think every young woman needs to see this film.  It’s informative to see the difference between a strip bar and true burlesque.  What the film brings out is how much fun the burlesque performers have playing with their sexual identities.  Even from the outside, it’s easy to see how truly comfortable they are with their bodies. 

I also loved seeing the male burlesque performers.  Men’s sexual identities are somewhat ambiguous within American society.  Straight men can be stuck with stereotypes they despise.   Seeing a man performing burlesque reminded me of how much men can explore their own sexual identities. 

I would recomend watching this film.  I was able to watch it online at Netflix.