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Last night we watched a fantastic documentary about the Young@Heart chorus, a group of elderly folks who perform covers of rock songs.  One’s first impulse is to coo over how cute the elderly are and to laugh at the surreal silliness of such an act; however, their performances are legitimately awesome and a good example of what makes art art.  I maintain that art is anything that communicates a feeling from one person to another.  A photo of a flower is probably not art.  A chorus of people eulogizing a recently deceased friend by singing “Forever Young” to inmates in a prison yard is, in this case, art at its most beautiful and true.  You might chuckle at the warbling voices and write the whole thing off as cheesy if you weren’t lying in a sobbing heap on the ground, at least if you’re anything like me.  This scene should be watched within the context of the movie, but if I cannot force your hand to rent it then I implore you to view it here.

It did bother me somewhat that the man who managed and conducted the chorus tended to pick ironic songs (Golden Years, Schizophrenia, I Wanna Be Sedated)…it felt vaguely cruel on his part, like he was more about getting you to laugh at the joke than enjoy the singing, but the singers didn’t seem to mind.  Many thumbs up all around.

Last summer I re-watched Requiem for a Dream, having seen it once about eight years prior.  I found it an able and engrossing film both times; however, my response to it changed drastically between viewings.  In my teens the infamous climax with its swelling strings, amputated limb, and double-ended dildo made me feel sad and uncomfortable.  In my twenties, it made me laugh out loud.  Aronofsky is a divisive director–I’ve found myself defending Pi and even The Fountain because yeah, they’re ridiculous, but they’re passionately ridiculous.  You can either embrace that spirit or spit at it, and I tend to embrace it.  The same is true of Requiem, although I simply have no patience for melodramatic fluff that tries to force me to feel the dirty shame of stupid people’s stupid choices.  I just don’t care about that shit.

So it is despite the aforementioned that I fully endorse The Wrestler as a great movie, though it’s not without its trite moments, nor without a tendency to overstate the obvious (as well as to include too many naked scenes of the admittedly stupendously built Marisa Tomei)….even with those flaws it’s really, really good and engaging, and it’s got genuine heart to it.  Pro wrestling is a fascinating spectacle; it combines the campy fun of drag with the exhilaration of choreographed violence.  Even viewers who don’t share my fond memories of watching Wrestlemania on pay-per-view would surely be intrigued by the depictions of what goes on backstage before and after a match.

Many reviews have mentioned the national tragedy of Mickey Rourke’s epic descent from this to this, but which Rourke created more sympathetic, realistic, relatable characters?  We would be remiss to mourn the loss of the young, lovely Rourke when we could instead be celebrating the heydey of the old, busted Rourke, who is still lovely in his own way.  It’s hard to imagine another actor hitting such a perfect tone or so deftly portraying a character who would be pathetic if he weren’t so vibrant.  Despite an ambiguously sad ending, I left the theater feeling uplifted and hopeful, which may or may not be what Aronofsky intended, but it was very welcome anyway.

I wish! No, instead I dreamed about my parents’ basement and horrific demonic forces haunting some anonymous family who lived down there.  (This is almost certainly because every time I reluctantly go into my own basement to do laundry, I think, “Boy howdy, I sure still am scared of basements!”)  The haunting later turned out to have been staged for some sort of game show, but that didn’t erase the dream’s earlier imagery of decaying babies and swirling lights.  And that’s not all!  The other night I dreamed that Richard Nixon was trapped inside the closet in my parents’ bedroom, and he was scratching at the door trying to get out.  This might have been because my cat often tries to open closed doors by picking at them with her claws, and the sound has slowly driven me insane over the years.

“I’m trying to think of a story to tell you…okay, so when I was a kid I had this dog named–”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Tell a pretend story.”

“Okay, so once there was a little girl–”

“The story is about Princess Gracie and Princess Rosie.”

“Okay.  Princess Gracie loved to build robots.”

“[Disgusted groan]“

“What’s wrong with robots?”

“Princess Gracie loved to build Barbie diamond castles.”

“If you want this story to be all girl stuff, then you tell it.”

“[Shrill whining pre-crying sound]“

“Don’t get mad at me!  Fine. Princess Gracie loved to build Barbie diamond castles.”

The story went on from there, but I tuned out until a lull in the story when they had the following exchange:

“When you see Star Wars you’ll see that it’s not just a boy movie.”

“But Darth Vader is so scary and he cut off the guy’s hand…”

“Yeah, but a lot of other stuff happens in the movies too…”

So I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and it’s pretty much the best book ever.  (Also the best book ever is “The Mother Tongue” by the same author.)  One of my favorite pasttimes is reading reviews of movies, books, etc., because there’s always some perspective you didn’t consider or some detail you didn’t catch, and it’s interesting to ponder other people’s experiences of things.  So anyway, I’ve been reading the book and getting all teenage girly about it, and it occurred to me there must be some people who didn’t like it, so I went on Amazon and checked the reviews by people who had rated the book “one star”.

Some douche’s one-star review was: “This book is neither short nor a history of nearly everything.”  Oh my god, fuck you, guy!  What are you, Professor Frink with a bug up his ass?  Is your next complaint going to be that Amazon.com is the website of neither a large South American river nor a warrior woman with one tit cut off?  Get bent, to the max.

Last week one of my clients got sick. I work with people who are severely physically (and often cognitively) disabled; there’s lots of spasticity and paralysis and the like.  In short, this is not a group of people who are much able to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze.  If any mucus, vomit, saliva, or other fluids are going to come out, they’re probably going to come out onto you (and how!).  Many of the clients also don’t speak, so even though we have some pretty great communication systems, it’s not always easy to pinpoint specific symptoms or figure out exactly what’s wrong.  Long story short, one dude got the flu, and no one knew it at first, and now I have it too, and possibly pneumonia.

I started getting sick on Saturday but didn’t go to the doctor until today (file under “nurses are the worst patients ever”) because I was feeling better, then worse, then better in a wave-like pattern that made me think I had two separate viruses back to back.  Until today I hadn’t left the house in four days, and now I have to stay home for the rest of this week and most of next.  I am so fucking bored already and I don’t know what I’m going to do with all that time.  I’ve tried reading, watching movies, lying in bed and moaning; while they all occupy me for an hour or two, I can’t sustain interest in anything.  And while I feel like steamed hell, I have the incredible luxuries of a nice husband and the ability to drag my stinking carcass from room to room when I feel like it.  My client doesn’t (although he does have a feeding tube, which eliminates the pesky problem of having to eat and drink).  Therefore I’m trying to look on the bright side.

That said, please blog about interesting shit this week, people.  You’re my only hope.