The Russians invented editing because they lacked film stock - they had to splice pieces together after they'd been shot, and a new way of storytelling was born. Eisenstein's famous scene of the killing of a bull intercut with the slaughter of peasants, revolutionized film-making.
But there was more to the Russian sensibility - an improvised survival and dignity versus murderous odds. Imaginative directors found symbols useful when straightforward dissatisfaction could end their careers. Andrei Tarkovski's great films - Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, Stalker - told stories that both dodged the censors and celebrated the Russian feat of survival. Sergei Bondarchuk's magnificent four-part War and Peace, released in 1969 after 8 years of filming, was the most costly film ever made (over $100 million then, around $700 million today), with a running time just over 8 hours. The first two parts are as beautiful as Tolstoy's language. The third and fourth parts bow to Soviet triumphalism - but make a magnificent work nonetheless.
And along the way there are humble films - The Ascent by Larisa Shepiko follows a group of WWII partisans hiding in the forest. When two are captured (one robust and cheery, the other weak and moody), we think we know which will betray his fellows under torture. But the story plays past the ending we expect, searing our spirits.
This year's How I Ended This Summer by Alexei Popogrebski is another gem in the rough-cut Russian style. A seasoned man (Sergei) tends a coastal Arctic weather station, assisted in the summer by a bored youth (Pavel/Pasha). While Sergei meticulously records and transmits weather data, Pavel amuses himself in childish fashion: stalking a rabbit, leaping from one empty fuel barrel to the next, playing video games on the station's computer, listening to rock on his headphones. He seems like any happy-go-lucky youth making the best of a dull situation. But when the moment arises to give Sergei some bad news, he lets every circumstance deflect him. As the secret looms larger between them, Pavel fearing the older man's wrath cannot bring himself to reveal it. The burden unbalances Pavel's restless mind, tilting the pair toward violence. Dwarfing their human troubles are the vast tundra, icy sea and immense sky. While our sympathies start with the young man enduring desolation, as the story progresses we realize the true hero is Sergei, who tends this weather station as his life's purpose. Even his contempt for Pavel's sloppy work is subsumed in his love of the place - he cannot hold a grudge.

A Modest Proposal (with apologies to Jonathan Swift) -

In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof laments the precarious situation of women in Afghanistan, and worries what will happen to them when US forces leave. And suddenly the solution hit me:

Take the women and children when we leave!

Let's see how long the Taliban (any government) will last with NO FEMALES to do the grunt work and be the whipping-post. A century from now there would be no Taliban to worry about - they will find out the hard way how thoroughly they need women.

Women trapped in domestic abuse are advised to leave their abusers, but usually outside assistance is needed. Let us provide that assistance to a whole society suffering from domestic abuse.

Let the men do what they will - shoot each other till no one is left? Pillory anyone less devout than the one in charge? Whatever they want to do - it's a system with a limit: a time limit. Since not every man is disrespectful of women, let any man petition individually to reunite with his family, but before he can rejoin them, he must make a solemn oath to respect all persons - and having experienced the absence of women, he will have a better understanding of how important they are.

And imagine how much we'll save - we won't need to send young Americans over there to be damaged physically and psychically, we won't need to spend money we don't have on weapons - the Afghan women won't be the only ones better off!

New pair of Jeans

In which Marigold rhapsodizes about her new pair of Levi's Shrink-to-fit jeans - yes, they still make them! What's so great about them? They're snug without being tight.

The trick is to buy a pair the size that would fit you, of regular (preshrunk) jeans. Try them on, they'll feel almost a size too big. Perfect! Take them home, remove the tags, and before wearing them (who wants to wear oversized stiff jeans anyway?), wash them in HOT water, then throw them in a dryer on the hottest setting, and pull them out when they're ALMOST dry.

Put them on and marvel at how they FIT.

They're button-fly jeans, per the originals - but not just any button-fly jeans will work. You can buy them online or at a store, but make sure the label says Shrink-to-fit. Otherwise, you'll just have a pair of jeans you wish you'd bought a size smaller.

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien
reviewed by NC Weil

This book has won many accolades, as short pieces and as a whole. It deserves them all. But I'm afraid to recommend it to my sons, who are in their twenties. Its juxtapositions of life and death, of ghoul humor and matter-of-fact insanity, are so raw, I fear my young men will fall in love with war.

In today's paper in 2010 there's a story about the 5th Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan - five soldiers are being tried for murder-for-sport and corpse desecration. In their cruelty I see the young men of this story - nineteen years old, just been drafted and dropped into Hell. They do callous things to survive, to differentiate themselves from the slaughter they must daily encounter. They do them to push back the fear that stalks every waking second and hunts them in their fitful sleep. They distance themselves from the meat they want not to be. By pushing each other to shows of indifference, and joking about what would otherwise make them incapable of what they are required to do, they survive - or die.

What is the worst death: to be flung in shreds into the treetops so your mates have to climb up and gather your fragments? To be sucked down in a flooded field of mud and shit in the driving rain, so your buddies have to foul themselves finding you, digging you out to send your corpse home? To be shot taking a piss on a lovely morning?

Or is it the death of your own self, your civilian carelessness and ease? Is it the pretty girl smuggled in by her boyfriend, who takes to war with an addict's intensity, joining the Green Berets so she can melt into the jungle and come back with human-body-part trophies, dead to ordinary life? Every story in this book could be made up. Every story is too real to be disbelieved.

It's about how we look at the world, how we draw the lines between ourselves and the emptiness surrounding our little sparks. By layering fact and experience, it's about how we can force death to a draw, play the game out longer, relish another morning of not being dead yet. Heartbeats and friends are all we have.

House Hunting Blues

Will you hear traffic, or noise from a park?
Will you be safe walking home after daark?
They say it's location - you know that's true,
But other things are also going to matter to you:

To escape the stuff-trap, it's got to be small
Which means: be selective of what's on the wall.
But which will it be: forced air or steam heat?
Windows painted shut or a fresh air treat?

Is there garage space for a project or two,
Is that a working fireplace or only a flue?
Is there a patio? Garden space? Lawn?
How will it look when the flowers are gone?
Why is the landscaping concrete and rocks?
This house has character; that one's a box!

Trumpet-blowing Time!

A high point for every writer is getting published. Maybe nobody's buying the novel, and the short stories languish between magazine submissions - but if you read periodicals, you have perpetual opportunities to see your name in print.

Previously I've scored with the Washington Post:
A letter (co-written with Fred) about the renaming of National Airport to honor Ronald Reagan.

One about the real value of a machine that chews up tumbleweeds - the article's tone was derisive, compelling me to observe that a flaming tumbleweed is the fastest way for a prairie fire to spread.

Another in response to DC Police incarcerating a woman whose blood alcohol level was well below the legal threshold. Arresting her, they cited "zero tolerance" for alcohol. Apply this principle to other situations: should we arrest drivers for going 20 in a 25 mph zone?

This February I scored a coup: two letters in the Washington Post in the same week:
One was on the editorial page, regarding the discomfort suffered on airplanes by oversized passengers and their seatmates. I suggested that airlines replace three-seat configurations with two-seaters, and charge whatever premium they find appropriate.

In the Health section my letter described the technique that helped me stop biting my fingernails.

I moved to Denver this spring, and subscribed to the Denver Post.

My letter in that paper about Christo's "Over the River" proposed project pointed out that I'd seen fabric samples at an exhibit in Washington DC. Far from being opaque, the translucent material on display invited the eye to see beyond its shimmering surface.

Then this Sunday Sept. 26th, I scored! Twice! --

1. My letter published in the Denver Post, "Making a difference with a bicycle | eLetters" was in response to Nicholas Kristof's column on World Bicycle Relief. I mentioned several similar organizations which have been operating for years in different parts of the US. These groups collect and ship bicycles to Third World countries, turning those extra bikes gathering dust, into much-needed low-cost durable transportation.

2. My letter showed up at the top of the column of letters in the Sunday New York Times' Week in Review section: Letters: A Drug Trial, and a Wrenching Choice I suggested revamping drug trials in situations where the control group's treatment has been well established as painful and ineffective: Use data from previous trials for the control group, and give all participants the new treatment.

So when you think you can't stand another rejection letter, try another venue:
If you know something an article writer didn't, your information may be welcome.
If your perspective is original, share it.

Christo's "Over the River" Project

It's been more than a decade since Christo and Jeanne-Claude (who passed this summer) first selected a stretch of the Arkansas River Canyon in central Colorado for their project. The plan?
To suspend sections of translucent silvery fabric over portions of the river within a thirty-mile section.
The obstacles? Chiefly the Bureau of Land Management, which has demanded study after study of the installation and its impacts. It was easier to get permission to wrap the Reichstag!

As we see anytime someone wants to step beyond usual expectations, there's been a lot of uninformed opposition -

Oh, the traffic will be terrible! (maybe traffic will be slowed down, so people will take a look at something they've never seen)

Oh, it will be like putting a lid on the river! (the translucent fabric invites the eye through its shimmer, to the canyon walls, clouds and sky)

Oh, it will be ugly! (the proposed material is beautiful)

Oh, it will be destructive! (Christo has placed his art in the midst of nature for decades - his creations and the natural world enhance one another)

Oh, it's a gimmick to make him rich! (all his projects are self-supporting)

These objections all add up to: Oh, it won't be like anything we've ever seen - yikes! (true, except the fear part)

There's also been support, from artists, and from people who agree that works of art open our beings in ways we cannot calculate ahead of time. In an era when much of what we do has predictable outcomes, we need these surprises.
Christo's not proposing a re-hash of something he already did, or that anyone else ever has done.

The essence of art is that it gives us a new look at something we think we know, and by seeing it in a changed way, understanding it differently.

I hope Over the River wins approval, and if/when it does, I plan to be one of the many volunteers who put the structures in place.