Lincoln

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I finally saw Lincoln yesterday and very much enjoyed it. I don’t have a particularly long attention span, and I often start to get bored when a movie passes the 100-minute mark. But even though this film is two and a half hours long, it flew by for me.

The combination of Tony Kushner’s words with Steven Spielberg’s visual direction was an interesting one that mostly worked. There were some middlebrow, emotionally heavyhanded Spielbergian moments, but not too many, and they were balanced out by Kushner’s complex, earthbound, well-crafted screenplay.

The acting is across-the-board terrific — and I hadn’t realized how many familiar faces were in this movie. More than once I had to rack my brain: “Who is that? I know I’ve seen them before.” Hello, Stephen Spinella and Julie White. And I had forgotten that Lee Pace, whom I adore, was in this, so it was a nice treat when he showed up on screen.

Daniel Day-Lewis, as usual, inhabits his role completely. He’s one of those actors who transforms himself with every part he plays. Sally Field gives Mary Todd Lincoln an unsettling, off-kilter energy. Tommy Lee Jones chews up the screen as the radical congressman Thaddeus Stevens — he’s so much fun to watch. David Strathairn as William Seward is also wonderful.

It’s a great movie. Go see it.

Obama’s Re-Election

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At around 11:15 pm last night, when Rachel Maddow suddenly announced that Obama had won Ohio, putting him over the top, I felt joy, and also relief. A heavy tension lifted from my body, a tension that I’d felt for I don’t know how long — going back to the 2010 midterms, and even before then. Scott Brown’s election in early 2010? Death panels in the summer of 2009? The rise of the Tea Party a few months after Obama took office?

We have a weird system in this country: if you get elected president, you’re a success, but if you serve only one term as president, then you’re a failure. You’re only considered a successful present if you get re-elected. Presidents really start running for re-election the moment they win that first term.

And last night he did it. This man who came seemingly out of nowhere a few years ago to win the presidency in 2008 just did it again. One-term presidents (Carter, Bush I) are a blip; two-term presidents (Clinton, Bush II) get eras named after them. We’re not in the Obama blip; we’re in the Obama era. Now even more kids will grow up under a black president, and they will find nothing extraordinary about it at all.

Here is what I wrote about Barack Obama after he was elected four years ago:

Obama will make mistakes. He has difficult decisions ahead. Our country’s in the toilet. And day-to-day governance is messy, with its daily news cycles, the messy legislative process, wins and losses, Washington sniping, political roundtables on TV. Poetry gives way to prose. In the euphoria of his election and inauguration, Bill Clinton talked about changing the culture of Washington. So did George W. Bush. It never happened.

There will be times I disagree with President Obama, get annoyed at him, disappointed in him. There will be times when the public does as well.

But this is an extraordinary man. And if things are even a smidgen better than they’ve been for the last eight years, we’re in luck.

In retrospect, this seems pretty accurate to me. There have been a few times that I’ve been really pissed off at Obama: after Scott Brown’s election, after the midterms when it seemed like repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was off the table, during the debt ceiling crisis, and most recently about a month ago, when he tanked during the first debate. But I always come back.

During the transition four years ago, when Obama was at the height of his promise and seemed like he’d be truly, remarkably transformative president along the lines of FDR, I read a biography of FDR. Thinking back to that time, happy thoughts mingle in my head — the holiday season, the promise of a revolutionary presidency, a good book.

Now we’re coming upon the holiday season again, and instead of being almost over, it turns out the Obama presidency is not yet even halfway done. (We’re about 47.5% through it, to be specific.) This is probably the happiest time for a two-term president: after getting re-elected, but before the second inauguration. There’s lots of work to do — fixing the fiscal cliff, most importantly — but he also gets to enjoy a moment of triumph.

Here’s Obama’s first press conference as president-elect, four years ago. It reminds me how crappy things were at the time. Things are still improving. But wow, how far we have come.

Sandy

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A few people have asked how we’re getting by in the wake of Sandy. Honestly, things are fine… for us.

Matt and I live in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Our neighborhood’s pretty far from where most of the flooding and power outages are, which is below 34th Street; we’re up in the 100s. The power flickered a few times on Monday night while the winds gusted, but it never went out.

New York City seems to be two different cities right now; up here, there are several downed trees in the nearby park, but other than that, things seem fine. A few miles south, though, there’s no power.

And in New Jersey, things suck as well. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law and their kids live in northern NJ, and they have no power. My brother’s house lost power sometime on Monday afternoon. My parents thought they were fine for a while; everyone across the street from them lost power, but they didn’t — until shortly after they went to bed on Monday. Since then, no power.

At least neither of them has any flooding or fallen trees. My parents have this big old stately tree in the front yard that has been dying for the last few years, and my mom was worried that it would fall. Fortunately, it didn’t, but I really hope they do something about it. They were lucky during Irene and they were lucky this time as well. They might not be lucky next time, especially if the tree fell on the house. It would be a shame to take the tree down, because it’s the only tree in the front yard, and without it the lawn would seem bare and the front of the house would get no shade. But apparently 75 trees fell in my parents’ town, including a few near their block. So they need to think about that.

My office is in New Jersey as well, and it’s been closed since Monday. Not that I’d be able to get there anyway, since both the New York City subway and New Jersey Transit remain down. Our subway line should be back up tomorrow, but I doubt NJ Transit will be. Fortunately I’m able to telecommute, which I normally do twice a week anyway.

So, in short: we ourselves are fine, my family is majorly inconvenienced, others are even worse off, and this whole thing is a big fucking mess.

George McGovern

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Former senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern has apparently been moved into hospice care and is nearing the end of the life. He’s 90 years old.

So, while he’s still with us, let us marvel that every Democratic presidential nominee since 1972 is currently alive: McGovern (1972), Jimmy Carter (1976 & 1980), Walter Mondale (1984), Michael Dukakis (1988), Bill Clinton (1992 & 1996), Al Gore (2000), John Kerry (2004), and Barack Obama (2008 & 2012).

In fact, every losing presidential candidate since 1972, not including incumbent presidents, is still alive: McGovern (1972), Mondale (1984), Dukakis (1988), Bob Dole (1996), Al Gore (2000*), John Kerry (2004), John McCain (2008). This doesn’t include Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980), or George H.W. Bush (1992), since they were all incumbents when they lost. So everyone since 1972 who is most famous for not reaching the White House is still alive.

So really, every major party nominee since 1972 is still alive except for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.

I just think that’s cool.

Trip Anxiety

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This post is sort of an anxiety dump. Because my attempts to avoid anxiety about our upcoming trip aren’t working. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three nights, and I had a bad stomach bug or something for the last day and a half, which thankfully seems resolved, but the anxiety won’t go away. I feel physically bleah.

My biggest fear involves our outbound flight. We’re flying on… American Airlines, which has been in the news lately for terrible performance, including terrible on-time performance. I could kick myself for choosing American. I honestly feel like a complete idiot. Why didn’t I know better?

I looked at the history of our flight, and it has taken off at least an hour late every night for the last week, except once. Last night it took off more than three hours late. So I’m worried we’ll be sitting on the tarmac trapped on an airplane, or camped out at the gate waiting to board, and I won’t get any sleep, and on top of that we’re basically going to lose a day of our trip.

I know, I sound like Mitt Romney, or some other member of the 1%. “Good heavens, our flight to Paris will be delayed!” Many people would be glad to have such a problem.

But still, the anxiety exists and it won’t go away.

Going to Paris

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Matt and I are going to Paris on Sunday for a week. It will be Matt’s first trip to France — and, in fact, his first trip to a country where the main language isn’t English. I was in Paris for three days when I was a teenager, but that was years ago and it’s kind of a blur in my mind. (Here are some photos I took of Jason Bateman in Paris.)

We’ll be landing in Paris Monday morning, and flying back the following Sunday evening. In addition to Paris itself, we also plan to visit Versailles — as well as Disneyland Paris. Matt and I are Disney theme park nuts, so we couldn’t go to Paris without seeing it. Part of me feels like it’s a waste of a day when we could be seeing more world-renowned treasures, but I’m sure it will be fun, and there are some rides and attractions there that the other Disney parks don’t have.

Even though I’m really looking forward to the trip, I’ve been stressing out about it lately. In fact, I’ve been stressed out because I’ve been looking forward to it. I’m worried we won’t have time to see everything I want to see. But I also don’t want to feel rushed. I’ve made a mental list of things I definitely want to do, which should help. (Matt doesn’t really have any must-sees other than Disneyland Paris — he’s cool with whatever.)

I love history, so last week I started reading a book about the history of Paris: Seven Ages of Paris, by Alistair Horne. It’s longer than I’d realized – 422 pages, with smallish print — and I’d been hoping to finish it before we left for our trip, so I could know as much as I could about the history of the various sites before we got there. So I was sort of stressing about that, too.

But yesterday I realized that I’ve been treating our trip to Paris like some sort of exam. I don’t need to know everything about a site before we go there. That’s what guidebooks are for. I can read more about it after. Matt gets stressed out enough about travel; I don’t need to add to it.

So I’m going to try to just chill the hell out about all of this and try to enjoy myself. When you travel, it helps to go with the flow, and to not worry too much if things don’t go according to plan. Part of the point of traveling is having new, unexpected experiences. You can’t plan everything out ahead of time.

And it’s not just a city of the past: it’s a city of the present. People live there. We’ll want to spent time just people-watching, and taking in the atmosphere of the city.

And after all, it’s supposed to be a vacation. So I’m going to try to just enjoy what happens.

Women in the 2012 Senate Elections

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I’ve been trying to figure out how many women could be in the next U.S. Senate.

Right now, 17 senators are women.

Two of them are retiring: Olympia Snowe of Maine (R), and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas (R). So that’s -2.

But in Hawaii, where Daniel Akaka is retiring, the next senator from Hawaii will definitely be a woman, because both major party candidates are women: Mazie Hirono (D) and Linda Lingle (R). So that’s +1.

In California and New York, the incumbent and the challenger are both women: Dianne Feinstein (D) is being challenged by Elizabeth Emken (R), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D) is being challenged by Wendy Long (R). Feinstein and Gillibrand should have easy wins; in any case, that’s +0.

So far, that’s net -1.

What about other races?

There are three races where women are running and are not likely to win (according to Nate Silver): in New Mexico, Heather Wilson (R) vs. Martin Heinrich (D); in North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp (D) vs. Rick Berg (R); and in Maine, Cynthia Dill (D) vs. Charlie Summers (R) vs. Angus King (I). So, that’s +0.

That leaves six races.

Five of those six races could increase the number of women:

Nebraska: Deb Fischer (R) vs. Bob Kerrey (D). Deb Fischer is way ahead and will likely win, according to Nate Silver. So that’s a likely +1.

Connecticut: Linda McMahon (R) vs. Chris Shays (D). Nate Silver says Shays is likely to win, so that’s a likely +0. (My instinct says: who knows with this one, but I’ll trust Nate.)

Three of those five appear to be tossups right now:

Massachusetts: Elizabeth Warren (D) vs. Scott Brown (R): 0/+1.

Nevada: Shelley Berkeley (D) vs. Dean Heller (R): 0/+1.

Wisconsin: Tammy Baldwin (D) vs. Tommy Thompson (R): 0/+1.

And there’s one race that could decrease the number of women:

Missouri: Claire McCaskill (D) vs. Todd Akin (R). Despite Akin’s implosion, Nate Silver gives McCaskill just a 65% chance of winning — which is still pretty high, but who knows. So, -1/0.

Tallying this all up, and I don’t know if I’m doing this right, but:

Women in the Senate now: 17
ME (Olympia Snowe retirement): -1
TX (Kay Bailey Hutchison retirement): -1
HI (Hirono vs. Lingle): +1
NE (Fischer): +1
MA (Warren), NV (Berkelely), WI (Baldwin): +1.5 (based on probabilities?)
MO (McCaskill): -0.33 (based on probabilities?)

That works out to 18 plus a fraction. So it seems like there could be a net gain of at least one Senate seat, and maybe even two or three. The next Senate will most likely have 18-19 women. If McCaskill and all three tossups lose (which is possible), there will be just 16. If McCaskill and all three tossups win (which is also possible), there will be 20.

If all women running against men lose their races, the next Senate will have just 16 women; if they all win, even the long shots (CT-McMahon, NM-Wilson, ND-Heitkamp), the next Senate will have 24 women.

So the possible number of women in the next Senate is 16 to 24, with 18-19 most likely.

[Update: I forgot about Debbie Stabenow (D) in Michigan and Amy Klobuchar (D) in Minnesota, who are both heavy favorites for re-election. If they somehow lost along with all the other women, there would be only 14 women in the next Senate, but that’s not gonna happen.]

Krugman Quote

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Great paragraph from Paul Krugman:

The truth is that Romney based his whole campaign on the belief that he could blur his way to the White House, mouthing right-wing slogans, fudging the math, and counting on voter disillusionment with Obama to do the rest. Now that this doesn’t seem to have worked, he has no plan B.

47%: Taxpayers vs. Citizens

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A quick note about Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments, which many other conservatives seem to share.

There are many aspects of these beliefs that are odious, but one of the most odious is that people who don’t pay federal income taxes don’t have any “skin in the game.”

When our country was founded, most states had property qualifications for voting. In other words, you weren’t eligible to vote unless you owned property. The idea was that only stakeholders knew the relative costs and benefits of different economic policies; if you didn’t have any “skin in the game,” as it were, then you were unaffected by policy choices or couldn’t possibly be aware of the effects of those policy choices. As our society became more democratic over the first half of the nineteenth century, states reduced or even eliminated these property qualifications.

Today, the idea that there should be a property qualification for voting seems ridiculous. Under such a rule, nobody who rented an apartment would be allowed to vote.

Now, those who decry the mooching 47 percent aren’t saying that the 47 percent — which includes the elderly, the working poor, war veterans, and others — shouldn’t be allowed to vote. But the sentiment is similar. Certain people are better than others because they “produce” and pay taxes. Everyone else doesn’t count. (Except that it’s apparently all-American to try to pay as little taxes as you possibly can.)

If you’re homeless or unemployed, you’re not a full person. Can’t afford a voting ID, or don’t have a car to get to the DMV? Too bad. (My favorite argument about voter ID is, “You need an ID to get an airplane; why shouldn’t you need an ID to vote?” Um, do you think everyone in this country flies on airplanes?)

There’s this subtext (and sometimes it’s not even the subtext — it’s the actual text) that certain people just shouldn’t be allowed to participate in our democracy. We got rid of property qualifications in this country sometime before the Civil War; some people seem to want to bring them back in some form.

But being a human being is about more than owning property.

And “taxpayer” is not a synonym for “citizen.”

Jimmy Carter Breaks a Record

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(Warning: useless political data geekery below.)

Today, former president Jimmy Carter has reached a milestone: he is now the longest-retired president in U.S. history. In other words, he has lived longer after leaving the presidency than any other U.S. president. He has been “ex-president Jimmy Carter” for 11,554 days: that’s about 31 years and 7 1/2 months.

How long has he been an ex-president? When Jimmy Carter left office on January 20, 1981, there was no MTV. There was no IBM PC. Lady Diana Spencer was not yet the Princess of Wales. Nobody had heard of AIDS. Since Carter left office, children have been born and have grown up to have children of their own. The Reagan era, the Clinton era, and two Bushes have come and gone.

Previously, the longest-retired president was Herbert Hoover. Hoover left office on March 4, 1933, and on July 5, 1958, he became the longest-retired president in U.S. history, surpassing John Adams. Hoover died on October 20, 1964, having lived 11,553 days as an ex-president:

Yesterday, Carter tied Hoover’s record, and today he surpasses it.

The day after Carter left office — after a quick stop home in Plains, Georgia — he flew to Germany to greet the just-released Iranian hostages.

Four days ago, he spoke via video to the Democratic National Convention to endorse President Obama’s re-election.

It’s been a long ex-presidency. He turns 88 in a few weeks. Longer may he live.

My Photos of Jason Bateman in Paris

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Matt and I have booked a trip to Paris next month. I was there once before, in August 1989, when I was 15 years old. It’ll be Matt’s first trip. I can’t wait.

Today I dug up some photos I took the last time I was there. We happened to be there the same time that the cast of The Hogan Family was shooting a special three-part episode set in Paris. We actually ran into them on two different days in two different locations.

Here are the photos I took of Jason Bateman. I guess he must have been 20. Episode descriptions are below the photos.

Part 1 (9/18/89) – “The Hogans take a free trip to Paris and once there they plan on meeting the Pooles who are already on vacation. As the rest of the family enjoys the sites and sounds of Paris, David befriends an attractive woman, Julia, who unknowingly to him is a princess playing hooky from her royal duties. However, private investigators soon begin searching for her.”

Part 2 (9/25/89) – “Paris, the City of Lights, has cast a romantic glow over David and Julia, however, Julia’s day of playing hooky begins to slowly come to an end as the private investigators stake out the Hogan family. Sandy and Mrs. Poole quickly find themselves in trouble as they are chased through Paris by two private investigators who believe they may be planning to harm the princess.”

Part 3 (10/2/89) – “After a night of running away from the private investigators, David and Julia breathe a sigh of relief, that is until the private investigators catch up to Julia sitting on the bench and whisk her away leaving David without an explanation or a goodbye. Later, Sandy discovers Julia’s secret on the cover of a magazine and things turn around for David and Julia when she invites him and his family to a Parisian party fit for a princess.”

Disneyland by Myself

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Last month I went to a work conference in Orange County in southern California. While I was there, I went to Disneyland. By myself.

When I told Matt several months ago that I’d be going to Orange County, he said, “You should totally go to Disneyland!” I said that I’d feel weird going there without him. We just took our first trip there last October, and I thought I’d feel sad and lonely being there by myself with nobody to share it with. I also thought I would feel weird being a man in my late 30s walking around Disneyland and going on rides by myself.

He responded that if the roles were reversed, he would have no qualms going without me. Gee, thanks, I said.

About a week before my trip, I started to regret that I hadn’t added an extra day before or after the conference to make a visit. I started to feel that it would be sad to be so close to Disneyland and not go. But it was too late to add an extra night at a hotel and to change my flight without paying an exorbitant fee. I thought maybe I could go on Friday after the conference ended for the day, but the regular price of a one-day/one-park ticket was $87, and Disneyland doesn’t sell half-day tickets. Since I wouldn’t be able to get to the park until late afternoon or early evening, $87 seemed way too much.

But then, while looking through my conference brochure, I saw a URL for discounted Disneyland tickets for conference attendees. It included a special , including a special rate for entrance to the Disneyland parks after 4 pm: $45 for one park, or $60 for both parks (Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure). That was much more reasonable. So I bought myself a $60 park-hopper ticket using the special website.

And on Friday evening in California, after my conference ended, I went to Disneyland by myself.

One of the perks of visiting Disneyland by yourself is that you can take advantage of Single Rider lines at many attractions. They don’t really advertise this; you have to know about it. Basically, if you’re going on a ride alone, you can get on a special line with a much shorter wait, which they use to fill in gaps in the vehicles. I planned to use this as much as I could.

As I arrived at the main plaza between the two parks, I felt giddy. I couldn’t believe I was back here at Disneyland, unexpectedly, just nine months after my first visit.

I definitely planned to check out Cars Land, which was still under construction last fall, as well as the main entrance and plaza at California Adventure, which was totally chopped up last fall and covered with plywood walls due to major renovations.

But first, the main park.

As soon as I entered the Disneyland park, I rushed over to Space Mountain and got a FastPass. Then I rushed back to the other side of the park for my first priority: Pirates of the Caribbean.

The biggest disappointment of our trip to Disneyland last fall was that Pirates of the Caribbean was closed for renovation. I’d really been looking forward to riding it, because the Disneyland and Walt Disney World versions are quite different; the Disneyland version is the original, and it’s nearly twice as long as the WDW version.

Fortunately, I knew it was back open this time, so I rode it first. I felt weird holding up one finger when the ride attendant asked how many were in my party, but the feeling quickly passed. I got placed in the back row of one of the boats with the whole seat to myself. The ride was fun — although it almost felt too long. But that might be because the boats stopped moving halfway through the ride, due to some malfunction. For two minutes I was stuck in the ocean between two pirate ships shooting cannons at each other.

After Pirates of the Caribbean I went over and rode the Haunted Mansion, which is a classic.

I should note: one of the advantages of being at Disneyland by myself was that I could maneuver around crowds much more easily. I could spot gaps in the crowds and suddenly dart around groups of people without having to make sure Matt was behind me, so I could get from place to place comparatively quickly. Comparatively.

After the Haunted Mansion I went to Splash Mountain, where I used the Single Rider option for the first time. It was hard to find; I had to ask a few different attendants. The wait was about 20 minutes, but that was OK, because the main line had a wait of more than an hour.

I didn’t feel as weird as I thought I would riding by myself. Nobody really noticed. Nobody thought I was the creepy lonely guy.

Next was Indiana Jones, also via Single Rider.

Then I went over to the Matterhorn, which has Single Rider as well. I was really looking forward to this, because they’d made some changes since last fall, including new cars. The wait was so short that I got right back on line after my first go-round and rode it again, this time on the other track. So much fun.

Next was dinner, and then I used my Space Mountain FastPass. I had forgotten how much fun this ride was. I had a blast, as you can see:

Me on Space Mountain

After I rode Space Mountain, the sun began to set, so I left Disneyland and headed over to Disney’s California Adventure in time to walk through Cars Land as dusk set in. I don’t know the Cars movies at all, but Cars Land is pretty cool — all lit up at night in neon.

Unfortunately, the headline attraction at Cars Land, the most popular ride, the ride everyone wants to go on — Radiator Springs Racers — was closed due to a technical malfunction. Had I got there earlier in the evening, I would have been able to ride it. But when I got there it had been shut down for an hour and they were saying it would probably be at least another hour before it was fixed. I was disappointed, because there wasn’t anything else in all of California Adventure that I felt like riding. And I wasn’t going to waste my time waiting for a ride that might or might not re-open. So I took a few photos and then went right back to Disneyland Park.

I went over to Fantasyland to try and ride Peter Pan’s Flight, which we’d missed last time, but all the Fantasyland rides were closed because they were getting ready for the fireworks. So instead I went over to Tomorrowland and rode Star Tours — where, for the third time in a row, including two rides on our previous visit, one of the two randomly-generated scenarios was the pod race.

Then I saw the fireworks, and then I was exhausted — still jet-lagged, plus I had to get up before 7 the next morning. So I left the parks, went to Downtown Disney, and took a cab back to my hotel. As I was in the cab, I went online and saw that Radiator Springs Racers had reopened. Dammit. But that was OK, because I would have been too tired to go back and wait on a 45-minutes-plus line anyway.

Other than some minor disappointments and snags, I had a great time at Disneyland by myself. It didn’t feel as weird as I thought it would. It’s definitely more fun with Matt, but going there by yourself isn’t too bad.

The Clock by Christian Marclay

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This afternoon I spent 3 hours and 18 minutes watching The Clock, by Christian Marclay, at Lincoln Center. It was fascinating and profound.

It’s easy to describe The Clock, but it’s not easy to describe the experience of watching it.

The Clock is a 24-hour montage of movie clips that feature clocks or mentions of the current time, shown in real time. For example, if it’s 6:05 p.m. when you’re watching, it’s 6:05 p.m. on screen. Sometimes the clips are edited together to show similarities, other times to show odd juxtapositions. The sound from one clip sometimes bleeds into another. The clips come from all decades and genres and countries (though mostly American and British), in black and white and in color, in various moods. It’s like a Chuck Workman montage on steroids. The experience is addictive and hypnotic.

Lincoln Center is showing it through August 1. Admission is free, and you can stay as long as you like, but there can be a wait, because there are only about 100 seats. When I arrived this afternoon, I was told the wait was about 90 minutes, but I wasn’t doing anything else, so I decided to go for it.

Once I got in, I intended to stay for at least an hour, maybe two hours tops. But I wound up watching for more than three hours — from 3:14 pm to 6:32 pm.

The thing is, it’s easy to stay longer than you intend. You constantly know what time it is, and yet you also lose track of time. Even though the film is essentially a few thousand movie clips chopped up in a blender, a sort of narrative tension emerges. You keep wanting to wait and see what the next clip will bring… and the next… and the next…

There is also some built-in narrative structure. Starting at 15 minutes before the top of the hour, you see a lot more clips of people anticipating things that are about to happen. In movies, important things happen at the top of the hour: the bomb explodes, the train leaves, the store closes, the alarm goes off. As I neared the top of an hour, I had to wait and see what would happen. I watched what happened at 4:00 pm, then stuck around for 5:00 pm, and then before I knew it, it was nearly 6:00 pm, so I had to stay for that, too.

As the clock ticked down from 4:59 to 5:00 pm, Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt sat in his office, staring at the clock on the wall, waiting for his last day of work to end and his retirement to begin.

Just after 6:00 pm, Mr. Banks of Mary Poppins walked through the door of his house singing “The Life I Lead”:

I run my home precisely on schedule
At 6:01, I march through my door
My slippers, sherry, and pipe are due at 6:02…

The Clocks also shows you how movies condense the passage of time. For example, at about 4:50 pm, there was a clip of Steve Martin in Planes, Trains & Automobiles impatiently waiting for a meeting to end so he could catch a 6:00 pm flight. (We see 6:00 on his plane ticket.) Over an hour later, we see another clip from the same movie as he rushes through the airport to catch his plane, only to find it’s been delayed.

Similarly, four or five clips from The Time Machine appeared over the course of an hour. (And I saw three clips from One Hour Photo; that was kind of odd.)

At one point, something freaky happened. I suddenly wondered if there would be a clip from Clue — and less than five minutes later, there was. It was uncanny. I don’t remember what time anything happens in Clue, but something about the time of day — early evening — must have made me think about it.

Because that’s another thing: you can feel the mood of different times of day while watching The Clock. The late afternoon feels like a long stretch of indefinable time: people have trysts, children stare at the clock waiting to get out of school. At 5:00, work ends. In the 5:00 hour there are a couple of clips of children eating dinner, then as it gets later, people start making dinner, and other people start looking forward to their evening plans.

Watching The Clock, you really come to feel like “The Movies” exists as a separate, palpable, ongoing world where every year, every event, every reality is happening simultaneously. The feeling is heightened by knowing that The Clock is still going on right now even though I’m not there. It’s like there’s this alternate universe where things are happening right now — an alternate universality.

It was such an amazing experience. I wish I could see the whole thing. And I regret that I won’t be watching at 10:04 pm, when lightning strikes the clock tower in Back to the Future.

MOMA has apparently bought a copy of The Clock, so if you live in New York and won’t get a chance to see it this time around, you’ll get another opportunity.

It really should be available to stream online, so more people could see it.

Into the Woods at Shakespeare in the Park

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Last night Matt and I saw the Shakespeare in the Park production of Into the Woods in Central Park. Free tickets are distributed at 1:00 p.m., but because they only give out a limited number and it’s very popular, you really have to start lining up in the park by 6:00 a.m. to guarantee you’ll get tickets. You might be OK if you get there at 6:30, but if you get there at 7:00 you’ll most likely be too late, because the line will already be too long. (Each person in line can get 1 or 2 tickets until they run out.)

So yesterday Matt and I took the day off from work, dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:25 in the morning, got ourselves together, headed out the door, hailed a cab, and got to Central Park a few minutes before 6:00. The park actually doesn’t open until 6, so we had to line up at the entrance to the park at West 81st Street and Central Park West. There were already several dozen people ahead of us when we got there. A Public Theater staffer watched over things, explained some of the rules (such as: you can’t switch off with someone else in line), and said that those of us already in line would definitely be able to get tickets. Whew.

At around 6:00 a.m., the park opened, and the staffer led the line a little ways through the park and over to the Delacorte Theater. We then plopped down our stuff in line along a path leading up to the box office window and settled in for a seven-hour wait.

The seven hours actually went by incredibly fast. We brought chairs, suntan lotion, sunglasses, snacks, and stuff to pass the time. I had magazines, my Kindle, my iPad (loaded with a couple of movies), my iPhone, earphones, and a book of puzzles. It was like preparing for an airplane trip, but with 3G access. (Alas, no WiFi in the park.)

I wish I’d brought a hoodie, because for the first two or three hours I was surprisingly chilly in shorts and a t-shirt. It was already light out at 6:00, but it took a few hours for the sun to rise high enough to start warming things up. We lucked out with good weather; it wasn’t muggy or too hot.

There are restrooms near the box office, as well as a concession window that sells food and drinks. There’s also a guy passing out menus from a nearby deli: you can place orders, and they’ll deliver to you in line. People don’t mind if you leave the line for a few minutes at a time to use the bathroom, buy some food, or take a quick walk up and down the line. I took a few short strolls — I counted about 100 people ahead of us, and at about 10 a.m., I walked in the other direction and counted about 250 people snaking away behind us, most of whom would not get tickets.

The whole thing was very civilized. It’s nice sitting in the park under a canopy of trees, watching runners and bikers and dog-walkers.

The time flew by, and then at 12:45 we were told to start gathering up our stuff and begin compacting the line. At about 1:00, they started giving out tickets. When you get to the front, you just tell the guy whether you want 1 or 2 tickets per person, and he hands you some tickets.

Matt and I got four tickets, because my parents would be joining us. We were given Section O, Row Q, seats 512-515, which, according to the seating chart, were all the way on the end of a row. Given how early we got in line, we were a bit bummed not to get better seats, but we realized most of the good seats go to donors. And after all, the tickets were free. Later in the day I did a Twitter search and saw that some people in line got seats a bit closer to the center, although I didn’t see any that got much closer to the stage.

We went home and napped a bit, and then a few hours later we headed back to the park and met up with my parents. Outside the theater we saw Wesley Taylor (best known for Smash), and while sitting in our seats I saw Michael Urie in the audience. Apparently Tom Hanks was also there last night, and so was Jennifer Damiano.

Our seats turned out to be not bad at all. It’s a thrust stage, not a proscenium, so we could pretty much see everything. We did have a little trouble seeing the (spoiler alert!) giant at one point, but we could see it fine at another point.

It was only the second preview, so there are still some kinks to be worked out — the show dragged at times and ended after 11:00, but that will probably improve as the cast finds its groove. For me, the standouts were Jessie Mueller as Cinderella, Sarah Stiles as Little Red Riding Hood, Gideon Glick as Jack, and Ivan Hernandez and Cooper Grodin as the two princes. Amy Adams was surprisingly good as the Baker’s Wife for someone who is not normally a stage actress, and she did a particularly nice job with “Moments in the Woods.” Donna Murphy, of course, did a great, comical job as the Witch. And it was wonderful to see Chip Zien play the Mysterious Man, since he played the Baker in the original 1987 production (which my parents saw without me). And kudos to young Jack Broderick, who plays the Narrator.

There’s something special about seeing Into the Woods performed outdoors, with real trees in the background, especially as the sun goes down and the moon comes out. (Every so often I looked up and noticed that the moon had moved. It sure travels fast!) We weren’t sure we wanted to get up at the crack of dawn and wait in the park for seven hours, but I’m glad we did it.

About Chick-Fil-A

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Chick-Fil-A has been in the news lately for its anti-gay positions, its contributions to anti-gay causes, and its CEO’s outspoken opposition to marriage equality. None of this is really new, but sometimes the news follows its own course.

A few weeks ago, Matt and I visited his parents in the vicinity of Chattanooga, Tennessee. As we usually do when we visit Matt’s parents, we had lunch one afternoon at Chick-Fil-A. Matt really likes the taste of Chick-Fil-A, and they don’t have it in New York (except, for some reason, at NYU).

I’m not really a fan of fast food, for health, environmental, and philosophical reasons, so going to Chick-Fil-A is doubly problematic for me. But I never feel comfortable speaking up when we stop for lunch there. Matt’s parents are Republicans and I’m always afraid I’ll come off as the strident liberal I am, and I don’t want to “rock the boat.” For all I know, they don’t even know about Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay positions. And I tell myself it’s not like our few dollars spent on lunch are going to make that big a difference. But yes, that’s rationalizing.

So I still feel bad about it. At least it only happens once a year or so. Maybe next time I’ll actually say something.

Peter Guralnick and Elvis

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After finishing a book about the Beatles, I decided to read a book about Elvis Presley. I guess this is becoming my summer of exploring 20th-century pop music.

Several years ago a writer named Peter Guralnick came out with a widely praised two-volume biography of Elvis. It had always seemed like something worth reading, so last week I decided to buy the first volume, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, which takes Elvis from his childhood up to his induction into the U.S. army in 1958.

I came away disappointed.

Guralnick writes in an engaging style, and I finished this book having learned a lot about Elvis as a person. But unlike what Jonathan Gould does with the Beatles in Can’t Buy Me Love (the previous book I’d read), Guralnick provides little historical, musical, or sociological context for Elvis’s life. As a history lover, I really liked how Gould talked about what was going on in Britain and the U.S. when the Beatles became famous, what made their music distinctive, the rise of LSD culture, how “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” contributed to the development of serious rock music criticism, and so on. He goes off on many interesting tangents.

Early on, Guralnick writes about Sam Phillips (who recorded Elvis at Sun Records), Dewey Phillips (who gave him his first radio exposure), and Colonel Tom Parker (Elvis’s manager), but once Elvis gets famous, the book is basically one concert tour after another, as Elvis records one song after another, with barely any discussion of the individual songs or what made them significant. Elvis does this and then Elvis does that and then Elvis does this other thing.

Guralnick vividly portrays the frenzied reactions Elvis got whenever he performed, and that’s fun to read. But there’s little in the way of analysis. He never tells us exactly why Elvis inspired such a reaction in his fans. He never stops to tell us why Elvis or his music was revolutionary, what made his music different from what came before. He doesn’t tell us about the state of American popular music in the mid-1950s, he doesn’t tell us about the political or cultural atmosphere of the times, he doesn’t describe what the film industry was like when Elvis made his movies, and so on. The book sticks pretty closely to Elvis and the people around him. We rarely step away from him except for the early discussions of Sam Phillips, Dewey Phillips, and Colonel Parker.

I guess Guralnick does a good job of portraying what it was like to be Elvis, and that’s commendable. I just wanted more.

Oh, and another thing: before reading about the Beatles, I didn’t know much of their music beyond their biggest hits. But once I started listening to their songs I really fell in love with them. Many of them are so inventive, creative, and fun. Even their lesser songs are pretty enjoyable.

The same didn’t happen with Elvis, though. I listened to some of his songs while reading the book, but I couldn’t really get into them. Granted, I pretty much just listened to his early rock hits. I wonder if I would like his more tuneful ballads instead. But his music didn’t really move me in a visceral way like the Beatles’ music did.

The Beatles

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About a month ago, I became obsessed with the Beatles. I don’t know exactly how it happened; the seeds had probably been planted a few weeks earlier, when Mad Men used a Beatles song. All I know is, one Friday after work a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to get to know the Beatles better. I only knew their most famous songs; I didn’t know anything about their albums except the first couple of songs on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which my dad bought on tape or CD when I was younger.

So I did an Ask Metafilter search and found this thread about which Beatles album to listen to first, and based on that, I got Revolver — which, incidentally, contains “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the song that appeared on Mad Men.

Later that evening I decided, screw it, I’ll just get all the Beatles albums. The next day I decided to get the mono versions as well, because when I jump into a topic, I really jump into it. I also decided I wanted to read an in-depth book about the Beatles, and I settled on Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America, by Jonathan Gould, which I just finished a couple of days ago. It’s 600 pages and is simultaneously a group biography of the Beatles, an analysis of their musical development, and a sociocultural history of the times in which they lived. It’s terrific.

One thing I had never really thought about before is that Beatlemania in the United States began less than three months after the Kennedy assassination. Gould argues that many young adolescents were deeply affected by JFK’s death and needed new charismatic heroes to replace their youthful, engaging president, and the Beatles came to fill that role.

So over the past month I’ve listened to pretty much all of the Beatles’ music, all their albums, and have come to know them a lot better. There were songs that I vaguely knew before that I now know better. There were some songs that were introduced earlier than I’d thought (such as In My Life, which I’d thought was late 1960s as opposed to 1965).

One of my favorite rediscoveries, though, was a song from their album A Hard Day’s Night. I was listening to the album and this one song started playing and I thought, oh my god, I know this song. I don’t think I’d thought about it or heard it since I was a kid, but it was instantly familiar, like a lightning bolt from the past: If I Fell. I couldn’t place how I knew it; I just knew that I knew it. I heard the song and was instantly connected with some murky memories.

I think it’s one of the Beatles’ most beautiful songs — such unusual, surprising chord progressions. I’ll just end the post with a link to it:

Obamacare Survives

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I don’t have much to add to the reams of commentary about the Supreme Court’s upholding of the ACA.

Sometimes the Supreme Court really screws things up. Sometimes it muddles things. But sometimes, like today, it winds up clarifying things.

The healthcare “mandate” really should have been clarified as a tax from the very beginning. But that would have been politically untenable, so Obama went out of his way to pretend it wasn’t a tax. The result is that everyone focused on the first part — “you must buy health insurance!” — without focusing on the second part — “or else…”

Most people seemed to be acting like the “for else” was, you go to jail. If you don’t buy health insurance we put you in jail! Or, if you don’t eat buy broccoli we put you in jail! Because in this country we like to put people in jail. The United States has a culture of fear. We’re a pretty violent place compared to the rest of the first world; we focus on punishment a lot. And punishment usually means jail.

The Supreme Court — with the Chief Justice as the instrumental vote — showed the mandate for what it really is: a tax. You don’t have to buy health insurance. You can pay the tax instead.

This reframes the issue as a choice. Until now — due to poor political framing — most people seemed to think that under this law, if you didn’t buy health insurance, you’d be doing something illegal — you’d be a criminal. But that was never true. In reality, if you don’t buy health insurance, you have to pay a tax. (Of course, if you refuse to pay a tax, you’ll be treated like anyone else who refuses to pay taxes. But hey, I’m not allowed to withhold the part of my tax that goes toward funding wars or the part of my tax that funds the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group’s defense of DOMA. You don’t get to pick and choose which taxes you pay.)

In an ideal world, reframing the issue as a choice — pay for health insurance, or pay a tax — should reduce the temperature a bit. I don’t know if that will really happen, but I hope that at least some people who were uncomfortable with the mandate  — most likely, some people in the middle of the political spectrum — are now more comfortable with it. Because it was never really a mandate. It was a coercive tool.

The point of coercing most people into getting health insurance was not to make people do things just because Democrats like to make people do things. The point was to widen the insurance risk pool. This was necessary in order to offset the new law’s provision that prohibits insurance companies from refusing to sell health insurance to sick people or people with preexisting conditions. Without the mandate, the insurance rolls would become overwhelmed with sick people, raising premiums for those with health insurance. The risk pools need the influx of premiums from a bunch of healthy people in order to balance out the sick people. That’s how insurance pools work.

I used to be bothered by the analogy to auto insurance, because it didn’t seem accurate. People would say, “Health insurance is just like auto insurance! Everyone has to have auto insurance, so what’s the big deal with making everyone buy health insurance?” The difference, I would reply, was that they’re not the same, because you do not have to buy auto insurance unless you have a car. (New York City much?) Nobody is forced into the auto market, but the law would be forcing everyone into the health insurance market. This did bother me a bit.

But of course, as many people have pointed out, everyone is already a part of the health insurance market. Everyone gets sick, with the very rare exception of the few hardy souls who’ve never needed to see a doctor a day in their lives. Getting sick is part of the human condition. Having a car is not.

That’s why it’s troubling that a majority of the Court held that the mandate failed under the Commerce Clause. The activity/inactivity distinction was always pretty stupid, but Roberts and Kennedy fell for it. I have not actually read the opinion yet, so I’m not sure how far into the weeds they get with the Commerce Clause — SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein seemed to say that this is an unusual situation that will not create much Commerce Clause precedent. I plan to read it when I get a chance.

Okay — a bunch of paragraphs later, I guess I did have stuff to add.

At any rate, I’m relieved the Court upheld the ACA.

Saturday Night TV

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The TV networks have completed their upfronts, the annual presentation of their fall schedules to advertisers.

Looking at the Fall 2012 programming grid, the thing that really jumps out is how lame Saturday night network programming is these days. It’s all repeats or sports, plus a news magazine show.

When I was a kid in the 1980s, there was lots to watch on Saturday nights, especially on NBC. For years, NBC had a two-hour sitcom block on Saturdays, including such shows as Diff’rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, The Facts of Life, Gimme a Break, Mama’s Family, and The Golden Girls. We usually had a sitter on Saturday nights, so it was great TV fare.

As I got a little older I would also watch The Love Boat on ABC; it was followed by Fantasy Island, but that was at the very adult hour of 10 pm, which was too late for me. And anyway I was never really into that show like I was into The Love Boat. I had a TV in my bedroom, and I have this memory of watching the closing credits of The Love Boat and being sad because it meant Saturday night was over and I had to go to bed so I could get up the next morning and go to Hebrew school:

If you’re curious, here’s the 1983-84 network TV schedule. (Ah, Jennifer Slept Here. Mr. Smith. We Got it Made.)

At the bottom of that page you can see links for other years.

Obama Endorses Marriage Equality

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So Obama has finally endorsed marriage equality.

I will admit, I was totally surprised by this. We all knew he was doing an interview today and that he’d likely be asked about this topic, but I figured he’d continue weasel-wording his way through it as he’s done in the past. I was in no way expecting him to say that he supports marriage equality.

But on second thought, it doesn’t seem like as big a deal as I first thought it did.

I mean, yes, it’s great to hear him say it. His views had been “evolving” for a long time. But did anyone really think he didn’t deep down support marriage equality? He stated back in 1996 that he supported it. Then he became a national figure and he backtracked. But his administration has refused to defend DOMA. Now Obama himself has finally come out of the closet in favor of it, and it’s nice to hear him finally say so.

But he said that he still supports letting states decide the issue on their own.

So it’s not like his words are going to translate into further action.

Some people think Obama acted cowardly by waiting until after North Carolina voted on Amendment One yesterday. But would his words really have made a difference there? As Ezra Klein pointed out a few weeks ago in the New Yorker, presidential rhetoric rarely moves the ball.

And maybe I’m just a worrier, but I’m concerned that this will get the religious zealots out to the polls in November. Until now they were lukewarm about Mitt Romney. Now they have a reason to go out and vote for him. On the other hand, Romney was always probably going to pick a Christian fundamentalist as his running mate anyway. Probably.

And yet I don’t think Obama would have lost anything by continuing to play the game about “evolving.” I think it might have been politically smarter to hold to that position until after the election. I guess we’ll see.

I still think what he said is significant — not because his words will have an effect in and of themselves, but because if the President of the United States can come out in favor of marriage equality, it shows how mainstream the issue has become.