Christmas Break Brain Dump

• Christmas break begins in five hours and twenty-nine minutes. Not that I’m counting.
• When you’re a kid, you don’t realize that teachers look forward to breaks too.
• Or that, after the slightest snow, they sit on the end of their beds praying desperately that their school’s name will slide across the ticker of school cancellations.
• (Not that I do that. It’s just something I’ve heard.)
• Our district’s marching band will be playing in the Outback Bowl over New Years.
• Please note: I will be proudly watching them trump about in the cold from the comfort of a warm house.
• I kicked off the break right by attending a Skype Q&A with director Doug Liman yesterday. He did a couple little movies you may have heard of. Those Bourne ones, for example.
• His latest film, Fair Game, is about the U.S. going to war with Iraq even though a former ambassador testified there was no evidence to support troop engagement. The ambassador then writes an op-ed piece whistle-blowing the war efforts. And then, in response, the government leaks the name of the ambassador’s wife–an undercover CIA operative–to the press.
• The movie is touted as a fictionalization. But the most brilliant among us pick up that the President in the movie’s name is BUSH, the ambassador’s name is Joe Wilson and the CIA agent’s name is Valeria Plame. Which for news followers in the audience amounts to chain of implicit coincidences a mile long. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, the U.S. may have at one time sent troops to Iraq in real life. Hmmm. That’s one creative piece of fiction.
• Most people who attended were interested in the political controversy around the movie. Last week a Wall Street Journal columnist criticized the movie and it’s makers. Then Doug Liman wrote her back…in the Columbia Journalism Review. So as you can imagine, their argument is playing out very quietly. It’s all very hush hush.
• But it’s me who experienced the real loss. If I had been one day earlier, I would’ve seen 50 cent who attended the screening of his new movie “Gun” there the night before. Click here to see the speech he gave.
• (With prison movies like Stone and films singularly titled the “GUN” coming out of Michigan, I “couldn’t” be prouder.)
• It gets worse. If I’d been able to stay a few hours later, I could’ve seen Princess Bride which was the midnight show the night I was there. Lost out on both ends there, ay?
• Okay, strike that last part from the satire. I’ve been crushing on Princess Bride since the first time I laid eyes on it.
• When I got home, I watched the 19 month old emperor teetering on a slippery slope to a life of crime. He very methodically crossed the room, pulled himself up on a recliner, removed my wallet from the pocket of my coat and then slid my Driver’s License out of it’s sleeve. He’s a little young for identity fraud, but I can’t put it past him. He has a weakness for cheese and his pursuit of it could easily go south.
• Then my husband got home from coaching his away game and proceeded to describe his half-time pep talk which really–no lie–included the phrase “Adversity is staring you right in the eye.” I was impressed. Aren’t you?
• Without him, I might never know real devotion…of sports fans. Together, for example, we admired the fans who volunteered to dig the snow out the University of Minnesota stands so football can go on.
• I must go on. More later…