Killing Kennedy

I learned long ago, in some American history class or another during my school days, that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Yet it remained just another fact to memorize prior to an exam and nothing more until I read Killing Kennedy. This historical thriller, written by a coalition of Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, had me anxiously clutching the sides of my seat despite knowing full-well in advance the end of the story. I kept hoping that somehow, JFK was going to make it.  I almost wouldn’t oppose an alternate ending allowing his life to be spared as I grew to love the man and the First Lady as so many Americans did during his presidency.

O’Reilly and Dugard introduce their readers to a scraggly young Kennedy and lead us through the pivotal moments of his political and personal life up until it is cut short by Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullet.  We learn the good, the bad and the ugly of President Kennedy- his physical struggles with serious health detriments stemming from Addison’s disease and back problems to his major moral lapses while bedding with too many women to count (despite being married to arguably one of the classiest women to walk the White House halls). Thus, Kennedy becomes something real and tangible even to those born long after his untimely death. For this reason, the graphic description of his death is all the more painful to grapple with. All of a sudden, it feels as though I lost someone I knew personally. How Jacqueline Kennedy, who was covered with the brains and blood of her own husband, could surface from such a grotesquely scarring incident slides further and further from comprehension with each paragraph.

The authors of this non-stop narrative sprinkle it with facts and tidbits to truly round out the figure of John F. Kennedy. His therapeutic nude swims in the White House, the way he rough-housed with his two children in the morning and other facts of his private life add life to the two-dimensional textbook figure we learn about in school.

I never thought that an event seemingly so distant from my own life could affect me in such a way. Every time the authors mention some potential way his death could have been avoided jarred me to ponder how different things could be today. What if Kennedy had listened to warnings not to visit Dallas? What if his killer, Lee Harvey Oswald and his Communist dealings were investigated more closely by the intelligence community? This book certainly brings questions to its readers’ attentions. Questions, however, that simply have no answer.

State Tats

In the past few weeks I noticed a startling amount of men with the state of Hawaii tattooed on their shoulders. I understand the wish to pay homage to your state, but what if you inhabit a not so aesthetically-pleasing one? Can you imagine a tattoo-tribute to Wyoming or Colorado? Might as well just request a rectangle.

A simple polygon of a tattoo would provoke much confusion. Is that person saying he's a square? Is that woman obsessed with geometry? A four-sided box on your shoulder would be rather off-putting to employers and have potential mates questioning your sanity. Or, people would just think you are really deep and philosphical and go about scratching their heads wondering what the meaning of such a simple shape could possibly be. The explanation "it's not a rectangle, it's Colorado..." would get a bit old after awhile.

On the subject of tattoos, it has gotten to the point where some elderly folks have them, and often times it is something your eyes protest to. I fear for 50 years in the future when the majority of grandparents have saggy tattoo sleeves and wrinkly Chinese symbols on their ankles. Good luck convincing the grandkids not to get one of their own. Actually, maybe seeing the wrinkly saggy ink designs would be deterring enough.

 

Racist Produce

As I chopped a red onion which would soon become a key ingredient of my homemade mango pineapple salsa, my mind wandered onto yet another off-beaten path. I started to ponder the different colors of onions, and how much more I preferred red ones to yellow ones. Then my thoughts delved a bit deeper into the topic and I realized how I couldn't recall ever trying a white onion. That led me to wonder if produce, like people, are racist.

Yes,  I realize that suggesting that inanimate produce could be capable of racism or any thought for that matter puts my sanity under scrutiny. But let's get a little less literal and travel to the make-believe land of thinking produce. Humor me.

Some people claim that there is no longer any sort of racism but that is just silly. For example, African-Americans typically possess a much better sense of rhythm than us whities and Asians are, in general, better at math. So I have to wonder- out of the various colors of bell peppers, which would be better on the dance floor? What stereotypes would surround a green pepper vs. a red one? Just some food for thought. No pun intended...

Same goes for different fruits. Do red delicious apples team up against little ol' granny smiths? Are sweet potatoes kinder than their russet counterparts? Are plantains self-conscious of their larger cousins, bananas?


Who would win in a fight?




A Plot that Requires an Atlas to Follow

Fittingly enough, Cloud Atlas needs just that. Or a highly accurate map or cinematic GPS system. Let's face it- weaving in and out of story lines spanning multiple centuries, you're bound to get a little lost.

I'm not sure if the actor-recycling for various roles is helpful or simply another confusing element. If the actors' various roles paralleled each other in some way it would be easier to understand. I had to read audience interpretations of this aspect of Cloud Atlas to attempt to wrap my mind around it. Some characters had star-shaped birthmarks, but the characters seemingly had no correlation to one another. Hugo Weaving portrayed a villain in each story, but why is that significant? And Tom Hanks' plethora of personas did not seem terribly significant either. The interpretation I read said that as time progressed, his character became a better and better person. That seems logical enough, but not overtly obvious during the film. Perhaps reading the book would shed some light onto all of this. But on the big screen, it just adds more for your brain to struggle to comprehend. The good part of the actor-recycling is they got to showcase their talent to shine in varying roles.

The trailer raved that it is visually astounding. This observation, though true to a degree, simply stems from the use of computers to make for complex scenery and makeup to make Tom Hanks have a bigger nose in the 1800s or give Halle Berry a weird skin growth which I guess implies she is from the future.

Now that I delivered the bad news, time for the good. Since there is such an entanglement of stories, there is undoubtably something that everyone can enjoy. I felt like I was watching five movies at once- a comedy, a thriller, a sic-fi adventure, a period piece, multiple love stories and more. I laughed out loud, cringed at the unexpected gory scenes and terrified by the portrayal of the future. For these reasons, Cloud Atlas is worth seeing, but perhaps it is better to read the book first for comprehension's sake. 

The Purpose of Things

Most earthly beings have a purpose. Whether minuscule or grandiose, every creature represents a piece of the puzzle of the universe. Wow, that was philosophical...

The purpose of many creatures is obvious- domestic animals keep us company or complete some agricultural function or another. Black-footed ferrets keep the prairie dog population in check, and if they aren't around consequences of prairie dog overpopulation run rampant (*ahem* Boulder, Colorado...). One missing link in the carefully composed food chain leads to chaos. No, this is not a rant about the environment or human impact on the animal world. It is a rant about something much, much smaller- fruit flies.

I do not think there would be the slightest negative impact on the world if fruit flies ceased to exist. The only function I could attach to these horrendous insects is to try the patience of those whose homes they infest and whose food they contaminate. On that same note, what is the point of silverfish? Mosquitos? The only thing mosquitos have given us is West Nile virus, and silverfish a career for exterminators.

The purpose of many insects manifests itself clearly. Bees are essential for agriculture through pollination (the same goes for butterflies which are also nature's decoration for us to marvel at), wasps aid in the fermentation of grapes and therefore wine production (which possibly allows for forgiveness of their evil stings), roly-polies are adorable and praying mantises take out less pleasant bugs with their kung fu moves and (what is the plural for mantis??) are just plain lucky (and make for hilarious animated characters like in Kung Fu Panda).

I imagine God was bored one day and decided to mess with us humans by creating obnoxious insects. Or he wanted to help us learn the virtue of patience.

Juice Woes

The most entertaining part of my day yesterday was when I tempted fate by sampling juices that were borderline expired and telling Flora, the Kreation Juicery employee, if I thought they had gone bad or not. I suppose that is asking for some sort of food-bourne illness, but I was willing to take that chance for free juice that normally runs at $5.41 a bottle (and that's at the employee discount price!).

There were three juices that, due to their funky-but-not-funky-enough-to-chuck tastes, I was permitted to bring home. However, it turns out that cold-pressed, never-pasteurized juices go downhill fast, as the next morning even I could not bring myself to drink them.

The fresh coconut water not from concentrate sold at the juice bar is like crack. When I first drank it I thought, man that is amazing, but not nearly worth the price. So I decided to try my luck at Trader Joe's for some store-bought coconut H2O. The price of less than $2 put me over the moon. But after I took my first sip... well, let me put it this way: I imagine it would be much like a pain killer addict trying advil the day after downing four Vicodin. The Zico coconut water from concentrate was one of the most disappointing things I've ever tasted!

Ok, Ben Affleck, you CAN direct...

I retract all previous annoyed sentiments instilled in me by yet another actor turned director casting themselves as the lead in their own film. It still bugs me that Angelina Jolie felt the need to direct a film, however; but to be fair I did not see her directorial debut.

I can't rightly assume what Ben Affleck is like in reality, but I do give him credit for having a marriage which is still going strong and has lasted more than the Hollywood average of 6 months. Even more shocking is that his marriage to Jennifer Garner is his first. That boosts his likeability substantially, as did his film Argo. Going into the theater with low expectations may have helped. Seeing the trailer for the film about 60 times eventually wore down my desire to see it. After having seen it so many times, I easily memorized a good deal of the comedic one-liners sprinkled throughout the dialogue.

Argo is based, arguably rather loosely, on the Iran hostage crisis of 1979. Irate Iranians stormed the U.S. consulate and held all inside hostage until the U.S. government met their demands and returned a hated prior leader to them to be hanged. Six U.S. officials escaped to the Canadian ambassador's house where they went into hiding in hopes that someone would come to their rescue. Cue Ben Affleck and the CIA! Initally, I thought "wow, this is so timely, what with Iran's prominence in today's news." Almost immediately after that thought, the more logical thought that it would likely piss off all Iranians took its place. I hope for Ben Affleck's sake that he is not placed at the top of any hit lists.

I say that the film is "loosely based" on fact because many events were injected with an element of timliness to augment suspense and were clearly fabricated. People answering crucial phone calls on the last ring kind of thing. The suspense certainly kept me glued to the edge of my seat, however, so it obviously worked. Not for a minute of the running time did boredom overtake me. Other emotions did, however; I felt the terror of the hostages along with their other spectrum of emotions from hope to hopelessness and joy to fear. Of course, it is impossible to accurately feel as someone in that situation would unless you were in a similar one yourself, but Affleck successfully gave his audience a taste of such emotions.

Also, Affleck did not try to involve any unrealistic love interests or sex scenes just for kicks so I give him props for that.