diane: voted most likely not to take a stand on anything.
Railroad Tycoon! I know what I'm doing the rest of today!
3.5 miles. Overcast, but warm.
Somebody--can't remember who--said she admired the strong, opinionated stances I take in this journal.
This makes me laugh. Of course, you don't know me; you know the chick ostensibly described by this journal. In real life, I am a wuss.
Wussa americana: a person who wants to be loved because she agrees with everyone all the time; also, someone pathologically afraid of disagreeing with anyone for fear of seeming disagreeable.
There were several rounds of Trivial Pursuit last Thanksgiving in which my team could have pulled way, way ahead, had I merely insisted that my answer was right (which it usually was). But I don't, because I'm afraid of looking stupid, or of making someone annoyed, or of showing someone up, or whatever.
Tamar told me about someone who'd met me who really hated me because I called him a dork to his face. I said, "Clearly he's mistaken--I could never tell anyone he's a dork to his face, no matter how much I happen to think of his dorkness." I mean, I wish I could say that...but I can't.
I do take stances in my journal--political sometimes (such as with the Impeachment Follies), but usually on books and movies. I feel really good when a reader writes me to say that she went to see Out of Sight because I spoke so highly of it. If only I could get more people to go see Election, my life would be complete.
Inside, I've maintained a certain fear that something I've written will come back to haunt me. For example, George Lucas reads what I wrote about The Phantom Menace and decides I will never work, in any town, in any capacity (including dog catcher), ever again.
Jerrilyn Farmer wrote me, having come across what I said about her novel, Sympathy for the Devil. Though she didn't say anything of the kind--in fact, she asked if I wanted to read her new one, which does not start with a party scene--I can imagine that what I wrote in my entry about her book hurt, and that makes me want to change what I wrote.
When the object of my criticism (or the author of said object) lets me know that they've heard about what I said, what immediately what goes through my mind is that what I wrote was wrong, or unfair, or misinformed. And worst of all, what I wrote might have hurt someone's feelings.
You've heard the phrase: "the courage of his convictions." I don't seem to be overly burdened by that kind of courage, methinks. Just try to get me to disagree with you. Unless I am absolutely sure of what I think about an issue or I can find proof somewhere that firmly contradicts what you said--such as with the reader who insisted that the Senate could vote to convict but not have to remove the President (false)--I'll probably pretty much agree with you. It's my worst trait and one I'm trying to do something about.
You can see that I might have trouble expressing an opinion about anything if I thought that many people might hear about it. I'd be one of those movie critics who says, "Great!" to everything, including the Ernest movies. Not because I want to get my name in the ads, but because I'd be afraid of being wrong. Or, the cardinal sin: hurting someone's feelings.
I'm taking Ms. Farmer's mystery writing class at UCLA Extension this summer. I told her it was okay if she went ahead and flunked me right now.
The other night at Sneak Previews we saw The Red Violin, a Canadian-Italian film about the course of a special violin as it travels over 300 years. We see the power it evokes over its owners, and the magic--both good and bad--it carries with it.
The amazing thing about this movie (shot in Cremona, Vienna, Oxford, Shanghai, and Montreal--the settings of the five segments about the violin) is that it was shot for 10 million dollars. Usually I don't think about the budgets of movies, but this movie is incredibly lush, with rich period detail. The scenes in Shanghai alone could not be filmed for 10 million dollars in a Hollywood production.
The five stories are about the violin maker and his wife, an Austrian orphan who is a wunderkind on the violin, an English virtuoso, a Chinese prole, and an American art expert called into an auction house to verify the identity of the violin. This last character is played by Samuel L. Jackson, who is always wonderful and believable. (Although there's a scene when he gets angry at the staff of his hotel for bothering him, and I kept expecting the word "motherfucker" to slip in there somehow.)
I saw this movie Wednesday night, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I guess I recommend it, although it's not for everyone. The Red Violin is definitely not a movie that leads you to conclude anything, the way Hollywood movies do. Is the final scene of the movie supposed to be positive or negative? It's ambiguous. The five segments are uneven in terms of character development and motivation. And...can you really play a violin at the moments the English virtuoso does?
I like the way that certain aspects of the violin are made clear to us without having to be told (of course, I don't know if most people picked up on those elements). The movie cuts between the different time periods effortlessly--we always know where we are and who these people are. And I'm quite sure that the musically inclined--especially those who can actually play a violin--would get a tremendous amount more out of this film.
I sent in the script to my manager so he'd have something to read this holiday weekend. I'm sure hoping this horoscope is right. Otherwise, it's just another data point against astrology.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com