A Surprising Inversion

The movie, Brothers:


My Dad has been in Poland since late May. Today, I drove my mother to the airport. She'll be in Poland for a while. Jorjette left to go to Michigan's prettier coast on the West side. What I'm getting at is that brother Kenan and I are home, bachelor padding it for a week. We do nothing better than watching weird, indie movies (okay, the occasional blockbuster sneaks in too). Tonight's selection was a movie called Brothers.

Brothers is a Danish film from 2004 that garnered a little bit of acclaim from Cannes and Sundance but as far as I know, probably went unnoticed on the whole. It was certainly the first Danish spoken movie I'd seen. I checked out the trailer before hand and noticed a couple things, 1. it was a Focus Features movie (good), 2. the name of the movie was Brothers (uncertain), 3. one of the brothers was very stereotypically "rough" looking (bad), 4. the song playing over the trailer made me feel like it was a good movie even though I was only watching the trailer (does that make sense?).

[Fyi ... I won't give away any specifics, but I may hint at general themes that may act as spoilers]
The basic premise of the movie revolves around two brothers, one of whom starts the movie being released from jail and the other has a wife and two daughters but is going back to war. There's tangible tension between the two brothers and the parents are obviously disappointed with the jail bird brother. As you can see in the trailer, the good brother is thought to be killed in war but returns a few months later to his distraught family. Leading up to watching the movie and throughout the first third of it, I expected a simple redemption story about a "roughneck" brother who turns around his life when he's called upon to be there for his family.

What I appreciated about the movie wasn't that the "bad" brother showed signs of "good" (the "ragamuffin with the heart of gold" character is hardly a new role) but rather that the "good" brother showed signs of "bad." A pivotal moment depicting "good" brother's "badness" halfway through made me realize that this movie had an extra layer to explore. The idea that the best of us are capable of evil is a poignant one, especially for those of us with relatively clean records. It is easy to fall into one's assumed role of being good, bad, or otherwise (fill in the blank) yet we must make decisions on a case by case scenerio. We are living, breathing, organisms that are constantly capable of a host of varying actions. Reputation plays its part but we are larger than others' perceptions.

I can't really go any further without dropping plot points but I appreciated that the brothers' morality (I'm over-simplifying a bit with the term, morality) moves in an inverted motion. I encourage a viewing of this movie, specifically before the Hallmark-ish American version is released this December. Go!View!Think!

Musical treat

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

Beck (& friends) re-record a few tracks. Found here.

CRAM it up

Been CRAMming for the last week and a half. It's a summer honors program for high school juniors and seniors. My job consists of hanging out at the front desk waiting for the students to get out of class so that we can play. I also drive 12 passenger vans and talk on a walkie-talkie.

The first week of classes went relatively smoothly. Then the weekend came. It saw some major hiccups resulting in a couple of late nights, running around, and rather intense conversations. Needed conversations.

My time here is about half over and everyday makes me realize that we're all broken people. These students have a heck of a lot more going on than what is apparent after an initial small group meeting. Just like I have a heck of a lot more going on than is first apparent. The walk towards reconciliation (between God and one another) is slow, difficult and easy to avoid. But hopefully the idea of Christian community is communicated to the students. The idea that we all mess up, we all fall short of any sort of perfection, yet God has given us each other to restore ourselves to Himself and to the group. It's a beautiful experience.

Picture Update

I finished college.






I'm looking for a job.








I'm preparing for a 3 week PA job back at Taylor.







I'm working on one last summer class.





I'm trying to start [real] life sanely.

Check

What I Take Away

My roommate Ben shared a blog on my GoogleReader that had a quote by Tony Campolo.
“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” -Tony Campolo
The quote really jived with my love of feeling morally superior to other Christians who "just don't care," it appealed to my appreciation of snappy quotes that speak so much in just a few sentences, and it was so, so cool because it used a cuss word. I immediately thought to post it here but, in a moment of rare wisdom, checked my reasons for posting it and refrained. But the thoughts the quote brought up stuck with me for the last few days and today, while sitting in chapel, our Indian speaker urged us to go out into the world to share the name of Jesus. My initial response was along the lines of, "well, everyone is called to their specific ministry, maybe a few will go to India, not me." But, along with the message of the quote here, I think my whole perspective on life is scewed.
I may not have been offended by the cussing in Tony's quote (cussing isn't really a thing I get hung up on) but it was the part that stuck out to me on my first read through the quote - not that 30,000 children will die. Likewise, after hearing a chapel message informing me of India's miniscule Christian population and social woes, my first thought was that someone else will get to it - and not that these facts are directly related to me. So I guess my one "take-away" thought for this blog is that I think in a very human fashion. But I want to think and act as Jesus does. That requires time. That requires God's softening of my heart.

My [Acting] Career

I'm in a movie...













... I play a clown

I can totally post blogs via my phone!

words

wordle.net has informed me of what words I use in my blog. I haven't figured out how to take out specific words yet (i.e. I don't actually type the word "Labels," that's more of a blogspot word).

Nondescript Pretty People (Spring Break)

Spring Break 2009 (the last spring break of importance, as far as I'm concerned):
The 2nd East Seniors
Atlanta (good friends (thanks for the good times), grad school visits, "job searching", sight seeing)
New Orleans (Bourbon street, Motel 6)
Cruise (sun, ocean, Cozumel, Isla Pasion by Twister, Fun!)
The first round of pictures

Each night on the cruise, we put on our collared shirts and went to dinner in the Celebration Dining area to be so elegantly served by George from Zambia. Next to our table was a table for two, at which two fine looking ladies* sat with their tanned bodies, little black dresses, and manicured faces/hair/hands/etc. But what was interesting about them was that I couldn't really make out any distinguishing factors between them; or any other pretty people for that matter.

And it is here that we began discussing that Pretty People are about as indistinguishable as people of another ethnicity with which one is not very well acquainted. You know what I'm talking about. It's why 80% of you could not tell the difference between a Chinese and Japanese person and why every African American person I meet looks like Will Smith, Usher, or Denzel and why when visiting an African American church in Detroit, I was compared to "that guy from 'That 70's Show.'" A sign of our ignorance, but that's another blog.

Bringing back the Pretty People from our cruise, they shared the same characteristics as every other pretty person I know. They both had brown hair with well blended highlights. They both wore similar black dresses at least two nights in a row. They both had tanned skin with zero imperfections. Both used plenty of make-up but not in anyway to distinguish themselves from one another. Once again, I'm going to cite ignorance as a cause of my inability to distinguish between the two. My simple request for all you good looking people out there, show some sort of individuality and I'll try looking for your unique characteristics.


*Their generic good looking-ness reminded me of these ladies: