wet of lies

wet. that is the word that would best describe the day. i just rode home on my bike in the rain, after spending the afternoon in the rain. i guess the whole morning and early afternoon that i was out, i had no wet problems. but as of about six pm, when my day part 2 started. i should go to bed, but i can't sleep right away, so i have a cup of tea, which sets me back an hour, plenty of time to write this up. besides the wetness, today hadn't many events.
the highlight, besides dining on a sausage, churro, and buying pistachios, was going back to, as tio wally says, brikadeiro's, putting bella down--okay, so i didn't really do the putting down, but i was there--, and sitting down for Ridley Scott's body of lies, from David Ignatius' novel. besides dicaprio's age, i was stricken by Ignatius' story and scott's delivery. i kind of want to read the novel, now, but there isn't time for that right now. good intentions. for one, it was a successful thriller. it kept my mind spinning for a lot of the time, which is good for a thriller. also, there was much of it that i wanted to believe, and much that i wanted to disbelieve. there were incredible things that, because of ignatius' background, i accepted as truths--certain situations, attitudes. a certainly impacting component was dealing with the disposability of human lives for someone's greater cause. both sides harmed innocent people deliberately; that was that.
the plot was incredibly enthralling, there was even a love interest that was not dealt with in the common hollywood way--which leads me to the greatest part of the film: the cultural sensitivity. the film clearly advocated cultural sensitivity and appreciation over "the amreican right". the film tells the clear story of the individual american--a deft, red-blooded, beer-drinking american--sticking it to the man, and having things his own way. the Man, crowe, is a meddling american government authority/soccer-dad glued to his phone, and is a near perfect foil to the young, adroit dicaprio. while crowe bumbles through his operations, watching camera images and moving pawns from the homeland, dicaprio travels all around the middle east--amman, jordan and dubai, uae, and others--dabbling in hands-on "agent work", including international diplomacy, hot pursuits, torture, hostage negotiations and an attractive--on a good day--iraqi(?) woman. he comes to trust the head of jordanian intel, and learns that he is more reliable than his friend in langley, va. he makes many mistakes, dicaprio, but his biggest are two: violating the jordanian boss's trust, and (another, which i forgot...).
while the movie, on the surface, violates certain tennets of american life by having the hero defy his superior officer and "walk out on america", it upholds, i believe, the free american spirit. the spirit of the individual, with his/her right to come and go, and trying to lift every person--american or not--above the status of cogs and wheels; people are not just parts in an act to accomplish a goal, they are individual, valuable lives. from the beginning of the film, there is a tension between dicaprio and crowe on whether or not to try and save an informant--crowe mandates: "you milked him dry, he's no further use to us" (not a direct quote), while dicaprio argues, "i just granted him asylum", only to have to face that individual, who calls him a lier, a traitor, and send him to his death. the viewer sympathizes as dicaprio complains about the death of a middle man that they framed as a terrorist, while crowe acknowledges it was necessary. the jordanian, on the other hand, is portrayed as a cool, in-control man, who makes orders and gets things done: "we do not work like the CIA; it is too democratic". he is able to act swiftly and of his own accord, and thereby gets things done, thereby protects his friend, our hero.
in short, i applaud it, and--despite the enormous amount of violence and terrible language--reccomend the film. it made me want to go to the middle east, and fall in love with it. crowe says, near the end, "you don't want to stay here; there is nothing you could like here. i have an office down the hall from mine waiting for you, as soon as i get the guy who's in it now out of it". admittedly, it is the best crowe can offer, but the audience is captive to our hero's passions: we want him to stay and make the best of it. it made me want to do the same--go somewhere and be a part of it, and be more than just an american--go to the middle east, or russia or sumthing. oh, wait, God has me covered on that one: i was born into another such culture. a new world culture, but a brilliant one, nonetheless. i can't help but love my home, brazil.

sidewalk ettiquete.

There is a peculiar thing about living in society--surrounded on every side when you lay down at night, in every direction for miles, people sleeping, loitering, perambulating, watching pulsing-lit screens. There are strange rules that reign us all--silently agreed upon. Etiquette, rules dealing with proper association and dissociation of those people that move around each other. "it's like, we go through life, with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot with nothing really human required of us."
There is a certain queer human quality about the way we deal with such banal interactions as walking down the sidewalk. I noticed this just this week; as I walk along, I am at a different pace as another person who goes the same direction I am going. As I catch up with him or her--or he/she catches up with me--it is not permissible, it is beyond our social boundaries, to walk along side that person which I do not know for any stretch of time at all. The quicker person must speed up, and/or the slower person must slow down so that neither of them--or anyone else walking by-- may be forced to consider that they have anything to do with each other. It feels awkward to walk beside a person I don't know, at the same pace, without looking at them--that is an unmentionable violation of their personal space--and yet without overtaking them.
It seems as though walking beside a person somehow binds you to them. Obviously, if you want to be associated with a person, to carry on with them in some way, you do walk alongside them. Perhaps it is too much intimacy to share with a stranger. That is what I have learned with city life, there are people out there that I don't know, and "I'm not supposed to speak to strangers," after all. But, "I don't want a straw! I want a real human moment, you know!"
I could go on, but I'll leave it at that...what do you think??

if i could only keep up--

First things first:

These are the things that I miss the most right now:

1. My girlfirend;

2. My guitar;

3. The class of 2008 (PACA);

4. The class of 2010 (PACA);

5. The class of 2012 (HC)...

I realize it's been over a week since I last posted. Plenty has happened. I'm fully moved in; my house meeting went fine and since then I've met with everyone enough so that I feel more comfortable at home (with most people). I've watched plenty of movies and had many ideas about everything. (Since Taken, it's been The Knack, and How to Get It--which had you cheering for the morally wrong thing to happen (well the better of two evils, I guess)--, plenty of Morgan Spurlock's stuff--i.e. Supersize Me and his TV show 30 days on intriguing social experimentation-- a creepy movie about a bad roommate, and Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist--kind of cute and playful, but still a tad morally dicey, since it catered to the tensions of teenage life in the adventuresome NYC nites. I haven't listened to any new music--I need to hook into source for that at some point. I have read some things, but I'll get to that later.

The biggest thing in the last few days happened on Monday--I finally talked to one of the owners of Midwest Grill (churrascaria) and I'll be starting on Friday with my first training. I'll admit, I'm having a hard time really connecting with the owner, mostly because I feel like a child around him. Hopefully I can work on that in the coming weeks. I bought my black shirt to go with black pa--ahem...--trousers, which will be my new working uniform. I'm quite excited to start, and also very afraid of screwing up at all. I'm not sure if I'll still be looking for a job--it's actually a lot easier not to, and to sit back and wait to see if any of my 15 or so applications already submitted will do anything. Maybe it wasn't that many.

Back to reading I've just finished an article from the TIME I found lying on the dinner table here. Its cover article on the Twitter phenomenon (you can find many more on twitter at any newspage, I'm sure), to me, a not-so-up-to-date-web-user, was mesmerizing, and made me want to get on board the booming revolution. The only other impression that I had of it, really, was that my roommate didn't think it was that great--even overrated. So I was fine with what I knew, intil I saw it on the cover of TIME. It's features and potential described by Johnson seem like a very good thing. Twitter came from the creator of Blogger. Despite its critics, it doesn't necessarily limit people's interactions to 140 characters. (you know, I wish I could make a running commentary of what I'm writing, like you can in Word--just leave a floating comment in the sidebar that is directly linked to the text... oh, what the rigors of paper-writing do to you) Of course, my mind was racing with how I might or might have used the tool. The mention of Twitter used in a discussion/conference reminded me right away of debates in English class with Carps--socratic circles and all--and how such a feature could be used in the same way to stimulate discussion. Things could easily get out of hand and off topic, of course.

Speaking of getting off topic, I just browsed about 7 other webpages, and chenged the settings on both of the webbrowsers I have open. I've thought about hooking up with Twitter, in light of the above article, but I've got enough--technology or not--on my hands, methinks. On my computer alone, I've gotten a new messaging compiler, Digsby, and am considering moving from Firefox to Chrome, and basking in the wonders of the Google empire entirely--which is why I still have both of them open right now (chrome seems like the better deal, but I already have so much built into my own Firefox that it's hard to transition--all my links and add-ons. Chrome covers some of them, but not my favorite).

Speaking of empires, I went on to browse another article in the times about Palm's new Pre, made to compete with the iPhone, which basically took over Palm's niche of the smart-phone market. I mention empires, because my conception of Apple is that it's the big competitor with Microsoft--releasing ads that constantly bash PC, and Microsoft rebutting with happy PC buyers. I guess MS's Bing is competing with Google Search, too. So, it's dog-eat-dog out there--Microsoft is the old evil empire, and Apple is the Shiny new underdog that comes in shining armor and more; now we see Palm, which was exploited (sort-of, not really exploited; at least stunted) by the iPhone line, clearly building on Palm's original groundwork; in some ways, not doing things as well as Palm--see the article for a comparison. In short, the iPhone is only better because it's so popular, and three years old, not just a couple of months, like Palm's Pre, which is quite buggy, for now. I guess that's the same you could say about Windows--Apple came around, did it better, and will eventually take over. Well, not quite, but I think you see where I'm going.

I hope you got through that all in one piece. That's all the result of one week's LOA--more like AWOL, but w/e. overandout

new flat, same trousers

when I was in England, there were certain things I had to get used to. People called things by different names than I was used to, had different cultural expectations--for people in general, for Americans, for a TCK. They say things like "flat" and "flat-mate" and "trousers". Well, I'm back in the big ol' U.S. of A., which really isn't all that old, and I've got a new flat, new flat-mates, new city, looking for employment--and yes, I'm still wearing the same trousers, but that's immaterial.
I'm nervous. I'm a bit uptight. I've gotten to know most of the faces and the names, but I'm still feeling insecure about this living situation. I don't have a task to carry me through the day--and I honestly have a hard time setting my mind to something more than watching episodes of the office and reading up on random things.
I have a meeting right now--in a couple of minutes--with the rest of the house. I'm apprehensive. I'm alos hoping this will help me get settled in the house, and maybe feel more at home; that's what this palce is supposed to be for me: home. For the summer. I'm apprehensive, I'm scared, I'm nervous, I'm hopeful. I'm also scared of just plain growing up, looking out for myself--at the same time that I want to do that. It'll be a wonderfully confusing experience figuring this all out. That is, if there's really "figuring" to do. I don't even know if that's what I'm supposed to do; "figure" things. "out". why not "in". or "there".
We'll see. I guess I will. or will I? gah!

Taken--and brought back

WARNING:movie spoiler probably included!
A couple of nights ago, I watched a different kind of action film. Taken, with Liam Neeson, was an action flick laced with home-spun emotion--sort of. The action is driven by the undying love for a father--who, for once, can use his skills to save her life instead of neglect her, which is his general track record. For that, I applaud the film; for once, I'm not in it for just the action--it's pretty good as a thriller.
Except for the action, of course. I am here, now, not to poke holes in the plot, but to point them out, of course. Most of those holes were in the action sequences. Most memorable to me was the raid on the docks--we already have experience with one man taking out six or seven armed ones--no problem there. The problem is, he runs outside carrying this chick to a random Jeep, and happens to find the key in the ignition--no explanation, of course, he just turns the thing on (later, when he steals another car, he does it the traditional way: using a coat hanger to get in and sparking the wires under the steering column). Then, of course he explodes a cluster of gasoline barrels that are sitting around in the parking lot--cuz that's what they keep around in dock yards, in case someone needs them (to blow up?!?). Oh, and they were right next to the bum-barrel of burning garbage or whatever it is that they burn--which is what lit the explosion. La-di-da, he doesn't get hit by any bullets, he gets away, destroying three cars--typical. One of them gets pushed onto a random ramp or pile of dirt and flips over, which was a dreadful action cut.
An intriguing point in the film is when he has to go through the tiers of corruption in Paris--and (SPOILER ALERT!!) comes back to his friend/contact. But he just wades stubbornly through it, tortures a man, kills plenty of others--nearly unscathed. He gets a blow to the head, a couple of bullets through the arm, and a couple of punches thrown in the side, but "you shoulda seen the otha' guys" would have been a fitting last line... Which brings me to my last point: the end, in which he returns peacefully home and gets away with everything!! I can hardly believe that just because all of the men (he did his best to keep the helpless, subdued women alive--and mourned those he didn't) he killed were involved in illegal activity it was OK?? France just let him fly back?? He threatened the family of a superior French officer, and waltzed through the airport security afterwards?? Oh, well. Everyone gets their happy ending...