APOCALYPTO: RACIST PROPAGANDA, OR JUST A GROOVY CHASE FILM?

I saw ‘Apocalypto’ recently, and without a doubt, it now ranks as one of my favorite films. Although it’s violent--sometimes graphically so—but I thought it a very humanistic movie all the same.  As an example: one of my favorite scenes was of an old woman helplessly and sorrowfully following her son-in-law as he’s led away. There’s no dialogue, but the scene is still so tender, and so damn sad!  The movie had another thing going for it--it made me curious.   Curious enough to wander through wikipedia, where I learned that the Mayan civilization spanned roughly a 1000 years, and had it’s heyday (termed the Classical period, because the Mayan art reminded early archeologists of early western statuary) several hundred years before the Spaniards sailed in, that they had several different calendars—including a 365-day solar calendar, and that they had zero—likely before India and Arabia clued-in the Caucasians about it’s uses.  Mayans were the only ones on this side of the ocean with a written alphabet, and practiced some serious body modifications—such as molding their children to have crossed-eyes and flattened foreheads. And they also thought suicide was a noble death.

I also learned that Mel Gibson’s original intent for the film was to create a Chase movie (as in car chases, etc)—but to have 'The Chase' stripped down to its barest essentials—a man running for his life; to have this take place in pre-Columbian Mexico was a secondary idea.  While reading about the film, I also came across the commentary of its critics.  As you can guess, the people most pissed off about this film are the academics.  Although they ignore Mr. Gibson’s advice to not view this film as if it were a historical document, I guess I can see how they’d be annoyed at the producers for cherry-picking images from very distinct and discrete historical elements from the entire millennial era of Mayan existence.  I suppose it would be similar to me being expected to accept as reality a film that featured medieval knight fighting going about his buisiness in 1970’s New York City (actually—I’d probably go to see that).  Still, people shouldn’t try to make a documentary out of something that’s intended as a vehicle for pure entertainment.  To expect the producers to convey the sophisticated astronomical discoveries of the Mayans, when all they had were two hours to set up a chase scene, is unrealistic and misses the point.  But again, if you’ve spent a majority of your life studying the Mayans, to the point where you’d call yourself a ‘Mayanist’, I could see where you’d be cheesed-off over the liberal use of classical-styled temples decorated with what is obviously post-classical stonework.

I did, however, have a serious issue with was one scholar’s movie critique, titled: ‘Is Apocalypto Pornography?’   The author’s stance was angrily against the supposed Pro-colonial message (White is Right) of the movie, conveyed by portraying the Mayans as brutish and in need of saving.  I don’t have a problem with her being upset by any message that promotes that sort of attitude, but the only way she can extract a pro-colonial message is if she can also extract a message of salvation, and I can’t figure out how she gets that from a film that’s called ‘APOCALYPSE’?    How did she arrive at this conclusion?   I mean—I had the opposite reaction--that this was a tragedy, and the truly tragic moment was the very end with the arrival of the ships.  How can two people watch the same film, and have such completely opposing views on what they saw?

In case you have not seen this film, here’s a quick synopsis: the film starts in an idyllic village in the jungle, where we meet and form an attachment to our hero and his family.  Ten minutes later, hell breaks out and most everyone from the village are taken off to the nearest city-state where they are to be either sold into slavery, or sacrificed and tossed down a historically inaccurate but very impressive stepped-pyramid.  Something happens, and our hero escapes, but not before completely pissing off this biggest bad guy, which then leads to our chase.  Within the last five minutes of the movie, our hero leads what remains of the baddies down to a beach, where we then see the ships of the conquistadores dropping anchor.  My first reaction to these ships is, ‘uh oh, now everyone’s fucked’.  Apparently when the assistant professor of the above-mentioned article saw these ships, she thought to herself ‘well look at this, how typical—the white guys have come to save the day’. 

I’m confused by her interpretation not only because I thought the title of the film should have given a lot away about the intended message, but also because at the very last minute of the film, our hero turns his back on the ship and goes into the forest ‘to seek a new beginning’.  And if that doesn’t call her whole interpretation a bunch of hogwash, there’s an earlier scene that’s heavy on the foreshadowing, where a dying girl prophesizes the end of the world.  These weren’t subtle messages—the whole movie was all grimness and little hope—the only one who gets out alive is the one who turned away from the new arrivals.  How did this author come to her conclusion?  Where is the justification for subjugating the Mayans?  What the hell is she seeing in that movie that I am not, and what is it that I am seeing that she cannot. 

Hmm. well, anyhow--go see it for yourself, then let me know which one of us is smoking dope.

Traveling the World Without Leaving the Table of my Local Chinese Diner

I was greeted by that distinctive 'gas leak smell, when I got off of the elevator this evening.  The experience was further enhanced by me walking in on my stove sitting in the middle of my tiny kitchen, instead of against the wall where I left it this morning. This worrisome combination was reassuringly explained by a note, left by building management, that the gas would remain off until the recently discovered gas leak could be found and then fixed.  No gas meant no cooking—so I grabbed a book of travel essays and struck off to support my local Chinese restaurant.

Which finally brings me to my point—I want to say right here and right now how much I LOVE the essay form.  My current and constant companion is anything in the ‘Best American Travel Essays’ series, and right now I’m reading both ‘The Best Travel Essays of 2000 and ‘The Best…2006’.  I have 2002 and 2005 sitting on my bedside table, ready and waiting.  

Without a doubt the essay is the best literary form—it’s flexible, adaptable, and it celebrates economy and elegance in writing--if it takes only two pages to say it then only two pages will be used.  With a well-formed essay there’s no such thing as filler.  And of the essay form, travel essay is ‘…the most promiscuous – of genres’, or so says Bill Bryson in the 2000 edition introduction.  He explains, ‘…as long as you leave the property at some point, you can call it travel writing’.   That's why I like it so much; I don’t know what I’m going to get, where I’m going to go, or how I’m going to get there, but I’m just about guaranteed a treat every time.

One of my favorite essays in the 2000 edition starts off this way:

‘It’s was like trying to drink a beer on the subway at rush hour. Jostled from all sides, I stood hard against the flimsy railing of a makeshift stall and tried to hold my place against the various swirling currents of humanity

Several of the drunks I’ve been cultivating peeled out of the crowd to greet me.

“You are my friend,” said Maurice , who at nine o’clock in the morning was already in the condition I aspired to achieve. “Buy me a beer”. It was his ritual greeting.

“No way in hell,” I said, which had become my ritual reply.’

                                    [from ‘This Teeming Ark’ by Tim Cahill, Outside magazine]

Don’t you just want to read MORE?  Aren't you just sucked in immediately? Since I won’t type out the whole article, I’ll instead say that the author continues to talk about a 10+ day trip on ‘…a conglomeration of eight flatbed barges cabled to a great throbbing riverboat motoring down the Congo River’.  There’s no thesis statement, no moral to this essay; he just shares his (very unique) experience of traveling, en masse, down an African river. Reading this essay reaffirms my belief that life will always be stranger, and more wonderful, than any fiction we can dream up!

Here’s another fabulous beginning:

‘There’s an expat in a bar called the Blue Marlin, which is on the ground floor of a pink hotel in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica. He used to be a detective, did a bit of vice, enough to know how the world works, how people think. It’s late, and he’s drinking gin.

“These girls,” he says, waving his glass at the chicas. The place is packed with chicas. “They average out at, what? An eight and a half? Nine?”

He’s partial to Latin women. Make it a seven.

“OK, seven. But c’mon, a lot of them are beautiful.”

Conceded, assuming your taste runs to python-tight clothing. And, you know, prostitutes.’

            [from the 2006 edition: ‘Where They Love Americans…for a Living’ by Sean Flynn, for GQ]

I am tickled at how the author includes us in this opening scene—like we're standing next to him in that bar, and the expat is too drunk to notice us. This article, using blunt and unromantic language, speaks of Costa Rica’s other tourist attraction: the prostitution and peddling of it’s under-aged, female population.  It has a definite point to make, and a moral to under-score. 

Here’s how varied the selections in this series are: the first edition (2000) includes essays on the first World Ice Golf (WIG) Championship in northern Greenland, spending the night in Central Park, racing a catamaran from southern California to Mexico, hitchhiking Cuba, and motorcycling through Cambodia to find the Khmer Rouge Minister of Tourism. There’s one titled ‘Lard is Good for You’, while another is called ‘The First Drink of the Day’.  One essay gives insight into how two incarnations of the Panchen Lama were divined—one by the Dalai Lama, and the other by the Chinese government.  Another describes a travelers attempt to turn his trip into an experience by ‘storming’ the movie set of ‘The Beach’.  There’s a stark account of being stranded in an African desert under a broken-down truck, and an even starker recollection of a terrorist attack during a safari tour.  Rounding out the first edition are articles on leaving Ohio, going beyond 101 kilometers outside Moscow, visiting the Islamic Western provinces of China, and remembering Nantucket of the past. 

Are you intrigued yet?

ASTHMA  AS  A MENTAL DISEASE

I've been feeling a little rough for the last 4 weeks.  Around the middle of December I woke up with the taste of sweetness in my mouth, which in the past has always signaled a lung infection--I've had asthma most my life, so I've learned to pick up on the cues.  I called in sick, slept most of the day, and later called my docter to ask for a z-pack prescription. I figured in a few days I'd be right as rain. 

My asthma first started out as severe allergies from cats, when I was seven or so--sneezing and hacking kind of allergies.  But then after a few years it upgraded to wheezing and gasping. When I was first diagnosed all I got for relief was this big dark glass bottle of syrup that my mom administered to me every day. She kept it in the hall closet, in the same place so it always sat in this sticky mess. Unknown to her or my dad, I used to get these intense late night attacks that would keep me bolt upright in bed desperately gasping for air for hours, and leaving me exhausted the next morning.  I really don't know why I never woke my folks during these attacks--I'm not nearly so stoic now.  Instead I'd do my own medicating--going to the closet in the middle of the night to drink right from the lip of that bottle. 

In the middle of my sixth grade year my family & I moved from Alaska to California, and it was there that I was finally sent to a specialist. After my first trip to the allergist I was given my first inhaler.  I can't fully express just how wonderful it was--using it for the first time during an attack, and to have the attack disappear.  Pure magic and liberation!  Along with that inhaler I also got a whole new regimen of preventative medication that my mom doled out to me. As I got older I was left to manage this myself, but to my own thinking all that really mattered was that inhaler.

I never outgrew asthma like everyone said I would. I also never really managed my asthma very well either. It didn't matter that I've had to go to the emergency room enough times that I no longer keep count. Sadly, it's been enough that I know the drill and can usually figure out how long it will be before I get my breathing treatment. The more memorable occassions include the time I was actually admitted for three days, but not before I spent hours in the ER listening to a drunk woman named Suzy growl like a bear, and a little girl screaming, first for her mom and then her dad, as she got her stomach pumped. There was also the Christmas morning visit (read 2 AM visit) in Albuqurque--where the nurses in reindeer antlers trotted about completely unconcerned, even when the 3 gunshot wounds came in--bumping all us asthmatics to the bottom of the queue. 

After all of this you'd think I'd learn, but still I wouldn't manage my asthma. According to my logic I stay away from cats--the historical trigger, and I don't wheeze all that much--relying instead on that divine inhaler to get me out of a jam when it happens. This may be why my docter doesn't allow me to have more than one refill at a time. Every time I run out, I have to go in to beg for another--and it's during these times that we do the dance about my medication. The last time we did this, she finally got fed up and told me if I didn't take my meds consistently I could expect irrepairable damage to my lungs in 10 years time. I told her I'd mend my ways, and really I meant it, and for a few weeks I was diligent. But familiarity really does seem to breed contempt because soon I was pointedly spacing out it out--running the following logic through my head: I've always been fine and I've had it all my life, and goddamn this stuff is pricey why the hell should I have to, blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, getting back to the recent infection: I finished up my z-pack and figured that was that. The sweet taste went away, but in it's place I got the cough. At first it was annoying, but then it got bad--so racking that I threw my back out. And then it got mean.  I started to cough so hard that the muscles of my bladder would relax--not enough to be embarrassing, but definitely enough to be frustrating--so I stopped drinking fluids. Then I got to coughing so hard that I'd retch.  If I was lucky, this would be hours after a meal; but then I started getting these coughing fits right after I ate--you can guess what the result of that was. Thankfully I never had an audience.  When this happened I also noticed I seemed to lose my breath for a few seconds. But then I'd breath through my nose and all was (relatively) well again.

Soon afer this all started happening I went to see my doctor  (really because I couldn't hack the vomitting) After I soundly flunked the peak air flow test, I was told I'd spent the last two weeks having a persistent and acute asthma attack. That's when we had a serious heart to heart about my flippant attitude about my health. When I left that office, I really had turned a corner--to know that the last two weeks of hell didn't have to happen, and the thought of this being my life in ten years finally penetrated.  I started taking every drug she prescribed to me like my life depended on it, but it was too little too late. 

At 4:30 AM Saturday morning--two days after my doctors visit and the same morning Saddam Hussein was hanged--I woke from a dead sleep by a cough so violent that it brought me bolt upright out of bed, and made me lose control of almost everything--including my breath. The muscles around my throat constricted so much that no air got through. I'm not sure why, but I ran out of my apartment into the hallway. By the time I got the door open, the muscles had begun to relax enough for pinpricks of air to get through, so I stood on tippy toe in a bile-stained nightgown in the middle of the hallway, sucking in as much air as I could. The whole event was maybe 10 seconds long, but god it felt endless.  Maybe it's just that everything's grim when you're woken suddenly that early in the morning, but I remember being being scared witless.  I don't know why people say drowning is a peaceful way to die, b/c I found the feeling of suffocation to be a miserably helpless and desperate one. 

I've since been back to see my doctor--twice--and as a result I'm on even more medication now.  Most of them are short-term, however, to get me back to where I was before. During a low moment I complained to my family, but neither my lipitor-popping grandmother, nor my type II diabetic dad were very sympathetic. I've also had another 5 or 6 attacks, although none like that early morning scare, and they are getting fewer and farther apart.  Also, I've since realized that if I remain calm, that angry, invisible hand around my throat will let go. Needless to say, I'm not feeling nearly so contemptous about my meds now.

2007 RESOLUTIONS:

Perhaps I shouldn't call these resolutions, since I'm hoping to have fun with a number of the items listed below, and the word 'resolution' implies drudgery, pain, and denial.  I gave up on the whole 'eat right/work out more/drop a dress size' thing now because well, you're automatically set up for failure. For example--I'm getting tired of writing as a resolution--'speak spanish'. Now I'm putting down: 'sign up and complete spanish immersion course'.  The idea being if I don't start speaking even some sort of pidgen form of spanish after that class, well then I'm just a lost lingual cause. 

So here we go:

1. Go see the NYMEX trading floor--just b/c it's there, and I've heard so much about it.

2. Start a Vegetarian Dinner club--and meet at least six times this year. I  figure this may be a better way of saying 'eat more vegetables'. First one is Jan 27th--and I think this may count towards the whole 'have a successful dinner party item on my Life List.

3. Read 'The Prize'. I've already started it, and this will not be a hardship--the book is incredibly entertaining. It's just so damn big!

4. Visit one place in the Middle East--I'm leaning towards Egypt and Jordan. 

5. Sign up and complete at least one Spanish immersion course. I've already looked it up--UofH has an excellent program--two weekends back-to-back.

6. Apply to the Rice MLS program.

7. Start & finish a sweater for myself. I have my eye on a cute little metallic thing.--Lots of holes.

8. Health resolution-about my asthma: using my peak flow meter, exhale 400 L/Min. Right now I am at 250--well below normal.  This I have to do.

9. Become proficient at tennis

10. Give blood at least twice this year. Not so easy--I keep passing out.

11. Be able to do sit in the lotus position--at least be able to sit cross-legged, for 5 minutes. B is going to give me a private yoga lesson as my birthday present, so we'll work on what I need to do.

12. Have good sex more than once this year--ideally with the same person.

13. begin voluteering at PPH

14. Write 12 blog entries..er, 11 blog entries.

15. Be proud of myself financially: start using CD's, stick to my budget, and no impulse buying. No retail therapy either!

16. Pay off the car by the end of the year.

17. Wear that red cocktail dress out in public at least once (this is a round-about way of saying eat right and work out).

18. Get past chapter 4 in that Nat Gas book!

19. Learn to salsa--and then go out salsa dancing!

20. write one macro or program in VBA

21. participate in the 2008 presidential campaign (on life list).

22. See the balloon festival in Albuqurque (on life list).

23. Ride in a hotair balloon (on life list)

24. Grow my hair to my nipples

25. Grow something from a seedling and don't kill it!

26. Go see friends in Alaska this summer

27. Learn to touch-type. http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/

28. Drive on I-10 during rush hour w/o getting hostile and tail-gating--or w/o that being the norm.

29. Join Houston Bicycle Club and start biking again.

30. Be able to run 3 times around Memorial park.

31. Kiss an astronaut--a single one, that is. I mean my god--I live in Houston, that shouldn't be hard.

32. Celebrate New Years outside the US.

33. Have a really stellar studio portrait photograph taken of me--something I'm really proud of, something that doesn't make me wince!

Wish me luck!!