Paying for idleness

Took it easy last week and will probably be paying for it this week.

Among other activities, I saw three movies:

The Invention of Lying: A lot of people said they'd read/heard bad reviews but having only read a ridiculous interview with Ricky Gervais I wasn't discouraged from seeing it. It's not bad - thoroughly giggle-worthy, in fact - but it's not a strong movie. Plenty of cameos and little Gervais-isms keep it going.

Where the wild things are: This is not a children's film at all and I feel sorry for anyone who watched it on the premise that it was. It's a very spare portrayal of adolescent angst, played out by some of the most beautifully rendered monsters I've seen in a while. It's a breathtaking film that continues to grow in meaning after the credits roll but it suffers from having been overrated in reviews. A little slow at parts, it's surprisingly witty (well maybe not surprising considering Dave Eggers co-wrote the script but whatever), and more importantly the kid's not annoying.

9: This is also not a children's film despite the fact that it is animated and features characters that are, more or less, dolls. While it could have been an excellent sci-fi film about souls and machines and what is 'life', it unfortunately had way too much 'bad machine chases after good dolls' action to drive home more thoughts than the obvious. I could see where it wanted to go, but it was not to be. Probably too immature to really tackle the big themes.

I also had a massage, donated blood, participated in Walk Against Warming (I think I kept calling it Walk for Climate Change...), tried chocolate cafe Coco Cubano (overpriced but otherwise a decent place to hang out with friends - we were there for about three hours) and, last night, went to see Jordie Lane at The Vanguard.

Today was a nightmare. Nothing specific getting me down, but I felt short of breath at the thought of how much I hadn't done and yet the horrible tightness of knowing that I wouldn't have been able to do more unless I gave up more of my life. An impasse.

The only thing that's tiding me through is the saying: "This too shall pass" (which I just discovered was from a Hebrew story about King Solomon).