Capote

I saw Capote this weekend. It's not the kind of movie I'd walk away saying "I loved that!" but it was one of the best and most challenging movies I've seen in a long time. Besides being well-done, and besides Philip Seymour Hoffman's mind-bogglingly good performance, it's a writer's movie, and I'm always a sucker for writer's movies.

The movie tells about the writing of the first "nonfiction novel," a murder story called In Cold Blood. What begins as Capote's intent to write an article about the murderers blossoms into a whole book, one whose research he becomes almost obsessed with. To get information from the killers, he crafts a phony relationship with them, even straight-up lies to them about his intentions. He tricks them into believing that he's going to write something that will redeem their memories, portray them as sympathetic and human, and prevent the world from forever viewing them as monsters. When their time on death row has elapsed and Capote hasn't gotten all he needs to know, he hires them a superstar lawyer who gets their execution stayed again and again, for years, while Capote plays them for information. One of the killers keeps asking the title of the book, and Capote keeps brushing it off by saying he hasn't thought of one yet. When he finally has completed all his research, and the killers' appeals are going all the way to the Supreme Court, he nearly has a nervous breakdown at the idea that their death sentence may be overturned and he won't have a good ending for his book. He used two people in order to turn them into characters in what he knew was going to be one of the biggest books of the twentieth century.

I call the movie challenging because there are serious moral implications in that, aren't there? I don't think Capote ever believed the killers were anything other than monsters; he just flat-out played them so they'd open up to him. Yes, he was upset when they were finally killed, but I would argue that was because, by then, they were his characters, no longer people, and every writer loves his characters.

I also found the movie disturbing because even in the ethically-ambigous parts where Capote came across as almost villainous, I know I would've done the exact same thing. Truman Capote had more talent in a clipped fingernail than I have in my whole body, obviously, but still I understand his desire to get down a good story at all costs, to manipulate reality into a better book. How many times in college did I initate final conversations or confrontations just because I needed an ending for a particular friendship or dating storyline in my journal? Numerous. It's a weird thing, when events become not events but pre-written literature. Capote didn't change what happened -- he didn't change the crime -- but he kept the killers alive for three years longer than they were supposed to be, just so he could get a good ending out of them. Take that, James Frey.

The Slut List

Once a year in my high school, some of the jocks would get together and write up the Slut List: the top ten biggest sluts in the school. It was biased - At least half of the list would be ex-girlfriends whose feelings they were trying to hurt. By the time I was a junior, The Slut List was something everything looked forward to. It would come out sometime after Christmas but before spring break. It was a news item. It was like waiting to hear Oscar nominations. The list would come out and be passed around in classes or by mouth in the halls. Despite the fact that the list was completely biased, we waited for it like commandments from the top of ... whatever mountain Moses met Jesus on. (It's funny because it's not like we needed the list to tell us who got around.) Less than half of the ten girls on the list were actually slutty. The jocks weren't even aware of some of the sluttiest girls, the girls who'd give head for pot, or for a ride home. The girls on the list were girls who dated guys with serious Madonna/whore complexes: as soon as their girlfriend went past second base, the guy was no longer interested because the girl wasn't as nice a girl as he originally thought. So she went on the list. One year, a girl who made the list got a hold of it and brought it to the principal and got a bunch of boys in trouble. Another year, my friend's older sister, who was tough as nails but beautiful in her combat boots and angled-forward haircut, kicked a football player in the balls when he made fun of her for being on the list. (This sparked a winter-long war between the jocks and the punks.) Most girls would be mad, or cry when their name appeared in red chickenscratch on the jagged-edged piece of looseleaf. But then a feminist kind of backlash happened. When I was a junior, one of my friends made it onto the list. I had only known her during that schoolyear, and in the six months since she'd moved there, she'd been with almost ten guys, and fooled around with many more. She knew she deserved to make the list, but when it came out, she was mad. "I'm only number six!" she shrieked in the hallways. She bonded with another girl who didn't make the Top Five either. "Next year," they discussed loudly with each other, "next year I'm going to be at least in the Top Three." "And I want to be Number One!" the other would respond. It was the first time I'd ever personally seen someone take a derogatory thing and turn it around to flaunt it in their attacker's face. The way women have claimed 'cunt' and 'bitch' as compliments in an attempt to take the sting out of it.

400-Pound Butter Cow

As part of their "Enjoy Illinois" campaign, Illinois' Department of Commerce is giving away posters free to apparently anyone who wants them.

This is where you say, "Uh -- what? Illinois?"

That's what I said. But they're nicely retro-looking, no? And even though I have no plans to ever visit Illinois, there are a couple of these that would look cool in my living room.

Click here to see them all.

Click here to get yours free. (I sent for the T-rex one.)

Hyperobservational

Calvino just coughed, and I cleared my throat within a nanosecond of the cough, when there had been pin-drop silence for the ten minutes before. Don't you hate when that happens? A lot of times when I'm talking to someone and they, for instance, touch their nose or brush their forehead, I will automatically do the same thing... and then I have to pretend like I really had to do that too, and I didn't just do it because I was being absent-mindedly hyperobservational.

Individuals Unhappy About Bush's Push to Ban "Human-Animal Hybrids"

The Little Mermaid
Wolfman
Mister Tumnus
Medusa
The Centaur Family
Master Splinter

Tales of a Mattress

I've been spending a lot of time in bed recently.

I will guess that that bit of knowledge leads you to one of two conclusions: that I've been sick, or that I've been gettin' doooown.

Actually, my increased periods of bed-time are due to a heated mattress pad I picked up on sale at Filene's last month. It was an impulse buy, one I regretted walking home from the store with it. It sat in the box unopened for days before I finally put it on. But that's when everything changed. Comfort is a thing rarely demanded, but once experienced, is impossible to live without. I have found that in the middle of a Massachusetts winter, there's nothing quite like slipping into a heated bed.

The mattress pad has increased my reading levels. Where I used to lounge on the computer or in front of the television before bed, I know go eagerly to read in the warmth, an hour or 90 minutes before I plan to sleep. I haven't read this much since high school, and I owe it all to the pad.

It ocurred to me while thinking about this post, that a bed is a funny thing to share. Sleep is not only utilitarian, it's a finicky thing too. People struggle with it, get pissed off about it, medicate themselves into it -- so much can hinder it, including the presence of another person or, dare I say it, pets. Yet we wouldn't have it any other way.

Because the sleeping is more than just the sleeping. It's more about nesting. So much revolves around the bed. If, in the middle of an argument, I or my significant other goes and lays on the bed, that's a signal that the fight is over and that it's time for discussion. Bed is a place to go when I'm sad. It's the place I cross my arms behind my head and stare up at the ceiling and dream and scheme. It's a place to nurse a headache or the flu; a place to make love; a place to journal life in little notebooks.

For young adults fresh out of college, the whole idea of home revolves around the bed. In the dorm, the bed is everything. It's a place for homework, a place to watch movies with friends. It's a kitchen table and a workbench. The bed is your couch and your welcome mat. If I'd had this heated mattress pad in college, I would've been the most popular kid in the dorm.