The Mysterious Voice of Anaïs Mitchell
All summer I listened to Anaïs Mitchell’s second record, Hymns for the Exiled, trying to figure out the mysterious quality in her singing and writing that is particularly noticeable in songs like Cosmic American and Two Kids. Her voice is not conventionally beautiful in the way people find Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston amazing vocal abilities pleasing. You cannot listen an entire summer to the same record of these two popular chart toppers, but I can attest that you can listen to Anaïs Mitchell. It is the somewhat rugged and vulnerable quality of her voice that keeps you interested in exploring the different regions charted by eleven songs on the record. Most records only have one or two good songs. This one has ten. The lyrics of Orion are so private that the song would have worked better if the melody had played a larger role in the listener’s experience and universalized the sense of loss touched upon in words about a complete stranger.
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Being Julia
Julia (Annette Benning) is the leading theatre actress in England of 1938. She is in midlife and she is bored. Her husband (Jeremy Irons), who owns the theatre in which she performs and with whom she enjoys a perfectly sexless marriage, introduces her to a young American fan, Tom. Tom confesses his love for Julia and seduces her. Old England seems to be saved by the vitality of young America. Before long, young America turns out to be recklessly deceitful and Julia finds herself deeply disappointed. For over an hour, I was quite bored by an uninspired portrait of theatre life in London and a superficial juxtaposition of English aristocratic values and American entrepreneurial cunning. But then Julia surprises everyone, including herself. Delivering a performance of a lifetime, Annette Benning restores the honor of England at least in this movie. In reality, England went on the lose its empire and America took its place as the leading nation in the world.
Lincoln’s Great Drepression
Surprisingly, the article on Lincoln’s state of mind in this month’s Atlantic Monthly turned out to be very interesting. Making valid inferences after the fact about what propelled a person to act in a particular way is difficult, to put it mildly. With hindsight everyone has perfect vision. Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Great Depression does not fall into the trap of inferring a grand thesis from one case. Looking at Lincoln’s entire life he finds one episode after another in which Lincoln does not overcome his melancholy for good, but rather learns to live with his sadness and to turn it into a creative force. Shenk argues that Lincoln’s depression forced him to analyze himself and the world around himself, giving him a deeper insight into reality that prepared Lincoln to see more accurately the challenges of his time. Think about this startling implication: if George W. Bush would get a bit depressed, we might all be much better off!
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Christianity and the Catholic Church at the End of the Millennium
In 1996 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who recently became Pope Bednedict XVI, sat down with Peter Seewald, a German journalist who had left the catholic church, for a long conservation that was published as a book in the following year. Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the End of the Millennium became a bestseller in catholic circles. On a visit to Germany (the homeland of the new pope) I stumbled upon the book on the coffee table of my host and started reading. It turned out to be so interesting that I spent the next day reading it cover to cover. Seewald asked Ratzinger all the questions that an unbeliever or critic of the catholic church might want to ask the high church officials. Seewald posed Ratzinger one tough question after another, and you wonder constantly whether Ratzinger will be able to give an intellectually satisfying answer. The picture of Ratzinger that emerges in this conversation is quite different than one that I had collected from reading worldy newspapers.
The Upside of Anger
Mike Binder, who wrote, directed, and played a small part in The Upside of Anger, successfully pushes the boundaries of the “romantic comedy” genre. The humor takes place on a thick background of anger, despair and sadness. Terry Wolfmeyer (Joan Allen), an elegant suburban woman with four daughters ranging between the ages of 13 to 22 suffers an all too common fate of middle-age wives: the husband just takes off from one day to the next. Terry is devasted by the thought that the father of her four children would run off with his young Swedish secretary. She becomes an alocoholic, barely managing to keep her household going. She is full of anger, letting it out on her four children and the former baseball star, now low-life, neighbor Denny (Kevin Costner). What makes this film watchable is that it frequently creates funny dialogs between the angry Terry, her headstrong children, and the Danny, who quickly has second thoughts about getting her into the sack.
The Interpreter
For someone who loves movies as passionately as I do, embarking on long flights poses particular risks. Frequently I am offered movies that I would never leave my house for. But when a movie flickers a few inches before my nose, it is difficult to resist the temptation of glancing up and of seeing whatever the airline has selected. Even when I have heard that the film is no good it is almost impossible to so “no.” This is how I came to see large portions of the horrible recent flick Monster-in-Law with Jane Fonda & Jennifer Lopez. On the same flight I wasted another 2 hours on In Good Company, a film that had an interesting hook (in the wake of a hostile takeover a young 26-year-old who knows nothing about the business becomes the boss of a demoted 52 year manager) but fizzled away in banal dialogs. On my most recent trip, I saw against my wishes The Interpreter, which was rightfully trashed by serious movie critics. Having just watched the first season of the fabulous TV show 24, The Interpreter seemed especially weak. Both start with a similar plotline: the police wants to prevent the assassination of an important politician. Where 24 succeeds admirably in creating suspenseful drama and believable characters that keep our interest, The Interpreter has nothing to offer. The director of The Interpreter, Sydney Pollack, seems to have looked for an excuse to give you an architectural tour of UN buildings in New York and remind you that the idea behind the UN is a noble one. If you want to experience a fantastic cinematographic event, watch 24.
Getting Addicted to “24”
A couple of weeks ago a friend raved about the TV show 24, which will start its fifth season in January. I rented the first three episodes of the first season from Blockbuster. The entire season takes place in 24 hours. Before I knew it, I had watched the entire season in a few days. The writers of the show have been able to create so much suspense that I (and other people I know) run to blockbuster in the middle of the night to rent the next episodes. This may be the best TV drama that I have ever seen. Go rent it but don’t blame me if you miss work because you stay up late watching one episode after another. I am addicted to this show!
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sixth
Both the recent Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings trilogies baffle me. I thought the first Lord of the Rings film was fantastic. The story built on thousands of years of human mythology and offered visually arresting pictures of a fantasy world inhabited by humans, almost humans, and many other strange creatures that you have never dreamed of. The movie’s special effects went beyond everything that Hollywood had pulled off until then. Since I had not seen any of first three Star Wars movies, my eyes enjoyed the adventure of seeing George Lucas’s vision of what life of the human species in science fiction world on distant stars and out in space would look like. But for me, the second and third episodes in the two trilogies were repetitive and boring. The drama and the script in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sixth are so poor that excellent actors such as Samuel Jackson and Natalie Portman lose their ability to act. Now here is what baffles me. The horrendously boring third episodes draw in more visitors than the much better predecessors. How do you explain that lower-quality films are more successful at the box office than their superior siblings? My guess is: the movies become an event that everyone wants to be a part of and when people go home and tell other people about the film, people evaluate not the films but the social event they were just participating in. The final episodes of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were marketed into gigantic social events!
Cinderella Man
I have confessed more than once that I don’t like boxing. This is the first movie in which boxing is not pointless trashing of human beings. The true-life story of Cinderella Man captures America during the great depression era and represents Hollywood at its best. The cinematography is superb: you feel like being in the ring yourself, fighting for your own survival. Paul Giamatti is in the running for an Oscar as a best supporting actor. To prepare you for why the boxer Jim Braddock was called “Cinderella Man”, I attach the text of the fairy tale Cinderella recorded from a German oral tradition by the brothers Grimm who also put out the first German-language dictionary.
Cinderella
by the Grimm Brothers
The wife of a rich man fell sick, and as she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, “Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you.”
Thereupon she closed her eyes and departed. Every day the maiden went out to her mother’s grave, and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and by the time the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife.
The woman had brought with her into the house two daughters, who were beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart. Now began a bad time for the poor step-child. “Is the stupid goose to sit in the parlor with us,” they said. “He who wants to eat bread must earn it. Out with the kitchen-wench.” They took her pretty clothes away from her, put an old grey bedgown on her, and gave her wooden shoes.
“Just look at the proud princess, how decked out she is,” they cried, and laughed, and led her into the kitchen. There she had to do hard work from morning till night, get up before daybreak, carry water, light fires, cook and wash. Besides this, the sisters did her every imaginable injury - they mocked her and emptied her peas and lentils into the ashes, so that she was forced to sit and pick them out again. In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders. And as on that account she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.
It happened that the father was once going to the fair, and he asked his two step-daughters what he should bring back for them.
“Beautiful dresses,” said one, “Pearls and jewels,” said the second.
“And you, Cinderella,” said he, “what will you have?”
“Father break off for me the first branch which knocks against your hat on your way home.”
So he bought beautiful dresses, pearls and jewels for his two step-daughters, and on his way home, as he was riding through a green thicket, a hazel twig brushed against him and knocked off his hat. Then he broke off the branch and took it with him. When he reached home he gave his step-daughters the things which they had wished for, and to Cinderella he gave the branch from the hazel-bush. Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother’s grave and planted the branch on it, and wept so much that the tears fell down on it and watered it. And it grew and became a handsome tree. Thrice a day Cinderella went and sat beneath it, and wept and prayed, and a little white bird always came on the tree, and if Cinderella expressed a wish, the bird threw down to her what she had wished for.
It happened, however, that the king gave orders for a festival which was to last three days, and to which all the beautiful young girls in the country were invited, in order that his son might choose himself a bride. When the two step-sisters heard that they too were to appear among the number, they were delighted, called Cinderella and said, “comb our hair for us, brush our shoes and fasten our buckles, for we are going to the wedding at the king’s palace.”
Cinderella obeyed, but wept, because she too would have liked to go with them to the dance, and begged her step-mother to allow her to do so.
“You go, Cinderella,” said she, “covered in dust and dirt as you are, and would go to the festival. You have no clothes and shoes, and yet would dance.” As, however, Cinderella went on asking, the step-mother said at last, “I have emptied a dish of lentils into the ashes for you, if you have picked them out again in two hours, you shall go with us.”
The maiden went through the back-door into the garden, and called, “You tame pigeons, you turtle-doves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to pick
the good into the pot,
the bad into the crop.”
Then two white pigeons came in by the kitchen window, and afterwards the turtle-doves, and at last all the birds beneath the sky, came whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes. And the pigeons nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick, pick, and the rest began also pick, pick, pick, pick, and gathered all the good grains into the dish. Hardly had one hour passed before they had finished, and all flew out again.
Then the girl took the dish to her step-mother, and was glad, and believed that now she would be allowed to go with them to the festival.
But the step-mother said, “No, Cinderella, you have no clothes and you can not dance. You would only be laughed at.” And as Cinderella wept at this, the step-mother said, if you can pick two dishes of lentils out of the ashes for me in one hour, you shall go with us. And she thought to herself, that she most certainly cannot do again.
When the step-mother had emptied the two dishes of lentils amongst the ashes, the maiden went through the back-door into the garden and cried, “You tame pigeons, you turtle-doves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to pick
the good into the pot,
the bad into the crop.”
Then two white pigeons came in by the kitchen-window, and afterwards the turtle-doves, and at length all the birds beneath the sky, came whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes. And the doves nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick, pick, and the others began also pick, pick, pick, pick, and gathered all the good seeds into the dishes, and before half an hour was over they had already finished, and all flew out again. Then the maiden was delighted, and believed that she might now go with them to the wedding.
But the step-mother said, “All this will not help. You cannot go with us, for you have no clothes and can not dance. We should be ashamed of you.” On this she turned her back on Cinderella, and hurried away with her two proud daughters.
As no one was now at home, Cinderella went to her mother’s grave beneath the hazel-tree, and cried,
“Shiver and quiver, little tree,
Silver and gold throw down over me.”
Then the bird threw a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver. She put on the dress with all speed, and went to the wedding. Her step-sisters and the step-mother however did not know her, and thought she must be a foreign princess, for she looked so beautiful in the golden dress. They never once thought of Cinderella, and believed that she was sitting at home in the dirt, picking lentils out of the ashes. The prince approached her, took her by the hand and danced with her. He would dance with no other maiden, and never let loose of her hand, and if any one else came to invite her, he said, “This is my partner.”
She danced till it was evening, and then she wanted to go home. But the king’s son said, “I will go with you and bear you company,” for he wished to see to whom the beautiful maiden belonged. She escaped from him, however, and sprang into the pigeon-house. The king’s son waited until her father came, and then he told him that the unknown maiden had leapt into the pigeon-house. The old man thought, “Can it be Cinderella.” And they had to bring him an axe and a pickaxe that he might hew the pigeon-house to pieces, but no one was inside it. And when they got home Cinderella lay in her dirty clothes among the ashes, and a dim little oil-lamp was burning on the mantle-piece, for Cinderella had jumped quickly down from the back of the pigeon-house and had run to the little hazel-tree, and there she had taken off her beautiful clothes and laid them on the grave, and the bird had taken them away again, and then she had seated herself in the kitchen amongst the ashes in her grey gown.
Next day when the festival began afresh, and her parents and the step-sisters had gone once more, Cinderella went to the hazel-tree and said,
“Shiver and quiver, my little tree,
Silver and gold throw down over me.”
Then the bird threw down a much more beautiful dress than on the preceding day. And when Cinderella appeared at the wedding in this dress, every one was astonished at her beauty. The king’s son had waited until she came, and instantly took her by the hand and danced with no one but her. When others came and invited her, he said, “This is my partner.” When evening came she wished to leave, and the king’s son followed her and wanted to see into which house she went. But she sprang away from him, and into the garden behind the house. Therein stood a beautiful tall tree on which hung the most magnificent pears. She clambered so nimbly between the branches like a squirrel that the king’s son did not know where she was gone. He waited until her father came, and said to him, “The unknown maiden has escaped from me, and I believe she has climbed up the pear-tree.” The father thought, “Can it be Cinderella.” And had an axe brought and cut the tree down, but no one was on it. And when they got into the kitchen, Cinderella lay there among the ashes, as usual, for she had jumped down on the other side of the tree, had taken the beautiful dress to the bird on the little hazel-tree, and put on her grey gown.
On the third day, when the parents and sisters had gone away, Cinderella went once more to her mother’s grave and said to the little tree,
“Shiver and quiver, my little tree,
silver and gold throw down over me.”
And now the bird threw down to her a dress which was more splendid and magnificent than any she had yet had, and the slippers were golden. And when she went to the festival in the dress, no one knew how to speak for astonishment. The king’s son danced with her only, and if any one invited her to dance, he said this is my partner.
When evening came, Cinderella wished to leave, and the king’s son was anxious to go with her, but she escaped from him so quickly that he could not follow her. The king’s son, however, had employed a ruse, and had caused the whole staircase to be smeared with pitch, and there, when she ran down, had the maiden’s left slipper remained stuck. The king’s son picked it up, and it was small and dainty, and all golden.
Next morning, he went with it to the father, and said to him, no one shall be my wife but she whose foot this golden slipper fits. Then were the two sisters glad, for they had pretty feet. The eldest went with the shoe into her room and wanted to try it on, and her mother stood by. But she could not get her big toe into it, and the shoe was too small for her. Then her mother gave her a knife and said, “Cut the toe off, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot.” The maiden cut the toe off, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king’s son. Then he took her on his his horse as his bride and rode away with her. They were obliged, however, to pass the grave, and there, on the hazel-tree, sat the two pigeons and cried,
“Turn and peep, turn and peep,
there’s blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you.”
Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was trickling from it. He turned his horse round and took the false bride home again, and said she was not the true one, and that the other sister was to put the shoe on. Then this one went into her chamber and got her toes safely into the shoe, but her heel was too large. So her mother gave her a knife and said, “Cut a bit off your heel, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot.” The maiden cut a bit off her heel, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king’s son. He took her on his horse as his bride, and rode away with her, but when they passed by the hazel-tree, the two pigeons sat on it and cried,
“Turn and peep, turn and peep,
there’s blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you.”
He looked down at her foot and saw how the blood was running out of her shoe, and how it had stained her white stocking quite red. Then he turned his horse and took the false bride home again. “This also is not the right one,” said he, “have you no other daughter.” “No,” said the man, “there is still a little stunted kitchen-wench which my late wife left behind her, but she cannot possibly be the bride.” The king’s son said he was to send her up to him, but the mother answered, oh, no, she is much too dirty, she cannot show herself. But he absolutely insisted on it, and Cinderella had to be called.
She first washed her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the king’s son, who gave her the golden shoe. Then she seated herself on a stool, drew her foot out of the heavy wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper, which fitted like a glove. And when she rose up and the king’s son looked at her face he recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, “That is the true bride.” The step-mother and the two sisters were horrified and became pale with rage, he, however, took Cinderella on his horse and rode away with her. As they passed by the hazel-tree, the two white doves cried,
“Turn and peep, turn and peep,
no blood is in the shoe,
the shoe is not too small for her,
the true bride rides with you.”
And when they had cried that, the two came flying down and placed themselves on Cinderella’s shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there.
When the wedding with the king’s son was to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favor with Cinderella and share her good fortune. When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards as they came back the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness all their days.
English translation by Margaret Hunt
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