Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Mother Courage

Before last night's Republican convention, most of us knew little of substance about Ann Romney.  Sure she made a dream marriage with a gorgeous hunk (and nobody can deny that Mitt is a dream boat), sure she had five wonderful sons, but we really didn't know her.  She seemed to us just another lucky, privileged wife leading a great life, the life of the rich and famous.  That she was lucky and blessed to  have picked the right man when she was just a young girl, is indisputable, but so was Mitt, for last night I saw in her a woman of substance, a courageous person who seems to be the ideal partner for him.  She led a charmed life?  Think again.  She was struck with two horrible illnesses at the prime of her life.  MS is a capricious, devastating disease and no matter how long a person is in remission, it could always come back with great force.  People who have MS never take a single day of good health for granted, they have to live with the constant fear of ending up in a wheelchair or going blind.  The same goes for the much dreaded breast cancer, because everyone knows that no matter how early they catch it, it can always come back.  Sure he has a husband who'll be with her till the end of her life and obviously adores her (while others less blessed than her have to face these horrible diseases alone) but she's still a courageous woman.  A woman who has decided to face these horrible diseases head on and who will do much for their research if she ever gets to the White House.  She painted her husband as a strong, effective and generous man of "great moral convinction and integrity" and I suspected as much by the way he has led his life and has stood by his wife.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Mysterious Death of a Musical Giant.

The world was shocked by the sudden, mysterious death of Marvin Hamlisch, the reason is because according to the family "he dropped death after a brief illness," a theory that strikes terror at the heart of everyone.  Did he have a heart attack?  A stroke?  A fulminant kind of cancer?  People just don't drop death out of the blue.  I understand they may want to guard their privacy, but by withholding the real reason, they are only fueling more  and more speculation.  He was only sixty eight years old and in seemingly good health, looking forward to composing more and more hits and contributing more and more to the world.  A man like that just doesn't drop death overnight.  It's a shame because instead of focussing on the huge loss his death represents, most of us are focussing on the mysterious circumstances.  He was a public figure, he belonged to us and I think we are entitled to know what he died of so we can mourn him properly.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Tony Curtis - Death of A fine, Underrated Actor

Why didn't Tony Curtis ever win an Academy Award?  He was a wonderful actor and a natural comedian but he never really got the credit he deserved.  I think Hollywood typast him as a "pretty face" early on in his career and he was never able to escape the label despite wonderful performances.  Sure he was a pretty face, one of the prettiest faces in the business but he was so much more than that.  He was a truly creative man and he proved that in the latter part of his career by becoming a talented painter.  Looking at his movies today you can see how much he invested emotionally in outstanding performances such as "Spartacus," "Houdini," "Trapeze," " "The Defiant Ones," "Some Like it Hot", "Sweet Smell of Success," and so many others.  His crowning achievement as an actor in my opinion was, of course, "The Boston Strangler," and it's an outrage that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for that astonishing performance where the beautiful Tony Curtis face all but disappeared to give birth to the tortured murderer Albert de Salvo.  I always felt that despite his financial success, audience adoration, many wives, affairs, children and drug and alcohol battles, he never really escaped the pain of his childhood .  I think he drew on that pain to give his best performances.  Farewell Tony and thanks for the memories.

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The Psychological Aches of Aging

We all know the physical aches of aging, that furtive process that seems to sneak up on you almost overnight.  But what about the psychological aches of aging?  What about coming to terms with the fact that your best years are already behind you?  That's a lot harder to deal with and to accept.  With people living a lot longer today you'd think that middle age would be easier, healthier.  We know so much more than our parents did.  We exercised our whole lives, we ate right and lived right so we should be able to make the transition a lot easier, shouldn't we?  Think again.  You feel more emotionally and physically vunerable.  You have less energy, you experience sleep disturbances for no reason at all.  Your eating and sleeping patterns also change.  You develop acid reflux for the slightest reasons so you can no longer eat to your heart's content, and no matter how strong or active you were in your youth, you become fragile.  You find yourself getting up several times a night and wake up with circles under your eyes.  You cry more easily and you begin to deal with your mortality almost on a daily basis.  Thoughts of dying and disappearing are suddenly very real and you want to leave something behind, something you will remembered by other than your next of kin and children.  The truth is you want to go on, life is a bittersweet affair but you love it, and you treasure it more and more in your later years.  But the mourning of your lost youth is very real and it goes on for a long time.  You ask yourself "how did this happen?"  How did I get here without even noticing it?  Where did those golden years go?  And believe me those were really the golden years.  The truth is that it was never easy, it was always painful because growing up is painful but you had a lot of time then, time to grow, love, learn and  make mistakes.  Now time has become your enemy and you're very aware of the brevity of life.  What to do?  How to adjust to this new reality?  I wish I knew.  I'm still struggling with it and mourning my lost youth.  Peace and acceptance will come I'm sure but it will take a long time and by then I'll have to meet new challenges.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Why Marilyn is still relevant today

She had the face of an angel, the body of a goddess and the soul of an artist, but those aren't the only attributes that made Marilyn one of the immortals of the world.  It was much, much more.  Some of the things were her relentless ambition, her courageous, almost ferocious climb to the top of the business despite her miserable circumstances.  And her long, painful struggle to be taken seriously touched all of us, even her detractors.  You couldn't help but admire her desperate need to better herself, to become a good actress, to matter, to leave something of substance behind.  She yearned for recognition and not as the world's greatest sex symbol but as an actress of value.  The tragedy of her life is that she became just that but she never knew it.  She died thinking we thought of her as a joke, a sexual thing.  Fifty years after her death we finally recognize what a good actress she was - this vulnerable, much maligned actress who has become a legend.  Would nominating her for the Oscar she so richly deserved for "Bus Stop" have saved her life?  Nobody can say but it would have given her infinite joy, some of the joy she gave others throughout her brief career.  She paid a high price for immortality but immortality she achieved.  The world will never stop talking, worshipping and remembering Marilyn Monroe and she will continue being discovered by future generations to come when we are all gone.  Perhaps that was her real mission in life, this magical actress the likes of which we have never seen again and probably never will.