Cloud City Running Club

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m a science person, first and foremost. When I was younger this may not have been the case – science seemed to ruin everything, rob the world of a lot of its mystery and magic. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve increasingly accepted that science itself is magic. I mean – we’ve taken something from one planet and put it on another, how many spells did that take? Equations can be spells. Engineering is not unlike transfiguration. To a lot of people it may seem that we’re living in a cold, technological world, but to me it feels like we’re living in a world where we finally understand and can manipulate the things around us, turning them into new things, accomplishing feats past generations could only dream of, and we’re using this knowledge to conjure new realities and make the world a generally better place. But maybe that’s just me being romantic about it. Maybe magic is only magic if you don’t understand it. Maybe science is just a boring name for magic that is understood.

That said, I still like to believe real bits of old world magic exist. Moments where primal things can be summoned and you don’t understand why - a wind whips by and seems to tell you something you needed to hear, the sun bursts through and shines right on the thing you needed to see, a heavy fog comes in to wrap around you, obscuring you from view long enough for you to get your head together.

This happened to me one day. I was driving home from work, which was generally a miserable undertaking because the freeways always seemed to be under construction. All of the commercials on the radio seemed to sync and air during the one long stretch of road where I’d be jammed between a barren, dusty embankment littered with all the sad detritus of an urban metropolis and an ugly sanded brick wall that, visually, wasn’t offering much. It was this stretch of road, geographically so close to home, chronologically a daunting distance, that always brought me closest to losing my mind. Particularly in the summer, when the asphalt was so hot it was easy to imagine the tar turning soft and swallowing up all of the cars like a molten river overtaking a herd of doomed creatures in some prehistoric day. (These were the kinds of thoughts that stretch of road would inspire in me on a daily basis). I can’t remember what had been so harrowing about my day, just that it hadn’t been great, and life wasn’t what I wanted, and I wanted to get home but I wasn’t sure why, because there was nothing interesting waiting for me there. Life was dull. I needed something.

Once I’d cleared that dreaded bit of road it was on to my exit ramp, which sloped up and over the freeway and, on this day, was occupied at the half-way point by an enormous bank of fog that was very unusual for a summer’s day in a beachside town in southern California. It was weird. It was thick and gray and it clearly confused everyone. I passed through town and could just make out college students in flip flops and t-shirts huddling at bus stops, nonplussed. As I drove towards my apartment the fog grew thicker, its origins being offshore and my apartment being a mere three blocks from the beach. By the time I parked everything was eerily quiet, like a giant pause button had been hit and I alone had been immune. I was inexplicably excited, and I knew just what I wanted to do. I wanted to go for a run. Now, I had been known to run enough that I had an established path through the neighborhood down to the concrete running pad that led me straight to the pier, some three miles away. But I ran without frequency and running in the exhausted hour after I got home from work was rare. I remember as I got out of my car, though, that I felt IT. This was magic, and it was for me, and I had to change and get on the running path before everything disappeared and the world was normal again. I only had a small window.

I changed quickly and was out of the house before I was sure I even had everything I needed. Keys? Probably, but who knows? I think I was dressed suitably. I probably hadn’t stretched enough. And then I ran. I ran with giddy energy, I ran so fast through the thick fog that beads of moisture were gathering in my eyelashes, along my eyebrows, on my shirt, soaking me before I even had a chance to work up a sweat. Everything was quiet. I saw no one. I could hear traffic like it was outside of a wall somewhere, like the fog was holding it back, protecting me, allowing me have this quiet, muted world for now. Once I’d reached the beach and descended the stairs to the running path the world grew even more distant and I felt like I had stumbled upon some mystical, ancient place. My surroundings took on a dream-like quality, seeming both familiar and foreign to me at the same time. The moss-covered stone bluffs to one side were holding the real world out, the distant sound of waves crashing down the beach were telling me where this world ended. It was only I who existed then, and it was one of the rare times where my body and my mind have been in sync enough to want the same thing: to move, to be alive, to be happy and feel joy and feel like, even though all of this was serving to separate me from a world I’d been bitching about not 30 minutes before, I was alive and I was in it and magic still existed and the universe wanted me to be there and feel it all. I’ve struggled with depression. I still do. Sometimes the memory of that jog - that odd, mystical jaunt through a cold, wet, welcoming cloud - is enough to pull me out of the fog that will occasionally descend in my own brain. To remind me that, as much as I love science and thinking and working through my problems in my own mind, sometimes I need to be nudged out of my own head and into the real world. Sometimes magic will descend, and you’ve got to be open to it. Because if you’re not open to it, you’re going to miss out.

Review Time: Make Up by Michelle Phan

Since I'm (rather obviously) not a prolific blogger, I didn't know blogging for books was a thing until recently. That said, I'm now blogging for books!

First up is Make Up by Michelle Phan. I, like many, have been a fan of her makeup tutorials on YouTube for quite some time, so I was curious to see how her five-minute beauty videos, which are constantly evolving to keep abreast with what's trending, would translate into the less flexible format of a book. The result is a glossy, photo-rich, breezy collection of mostly makeup advice, with biographical details and life advice thrown in. 

Some of the biography included is pretty fascinating. Her account of her ascent from living with her family in a one room apartment to becoming one of the most influential online beauty gurus is pretty impressive to read, even if the writing is a bit simplistic, but I'm assuming it's to suit her target audience of tweens and young adults. Her writing about her personal life is a bit stilted, like she wasn't really sold on the idea of including so much about her formative years, but once she gets down to recounting the business of building a digital empire her tone shifts into one of comfortable confidence. This is a woman well-versed about the ins and outs of her chosen profession. What I found most impressive was her strong sense of identity, especially as she was forging a career there wasn't a blueprint for. She rejected some major career avenues for makeup artists and ended up creating new ones just by following her instincts. This is not advice that will work for everyone in the real world, but she frames these decisions around being true to herself, which clearly worked for her. She includes lots of pictures, as well, so as she's writing about going to Paris with Lancome, doing makeup backstage at Fashion Week, founding Ipsy and, eventually, her own makeup line, it feels like the reader is being whisked along for the ride.

The makeup portion of the book is pretty straightforward. She has sections on skin care, makeup basics, hair, nails and fashion. Her instructions are well-written and easy to understand, and there are plenty of pictures to further demonstrate her techniques. I would totally give this book to a girl just beginning to experiment with makeup, and if I'd had it I could have avoided some common makeup pitfalls when I was growing up (I've definitely over-zealously caked on a mask of makeup a time or two in my life). Her conviction about good skin care was so well written I may have actually put the book down and taken a quick jaunt to my local drugstore to round out my half-assed arsenal of skin products. As a result I no longer rely on baby wipes on a daily basis, and her retinol recommendation may be responsible for me currently having the best skin I've had in years.

While 2/3 of the book is excellent, I found the last few chapters of the book unnecessary and a bit confusing. She offers chapters on digital etiquette, finding a job and writing a resume, and modern manners, which includes the importance of writing thank you cards and such. It's all fine, basic, common-sense advice, it just seems weirdly tacked-on and out of step with what the rest of the book is offering. She's not an online dating expert, she's not Miss Manners, and by her own account she's never had to hold down a traditional job, so I'm not sure why she's offering advice on any of these things. The only latter chapter that makes sense is a section on turning your passion into a profession, which is something she IS an expert on. She covers practical things like what it means to be an entrepreneur, how to write a business plan, and, of course, how to use social media to boost your online identity. For someone picking up this book because they're interested in how she built her empire, this section is as close as she gets to offering up a non-career-specific blueprint. 

Overall, it's a good-to-great manual on beauty and makeup for beginners. I'm honestly so fascinated by how she's gotten where she is I would be interested if she ever wanted to write book for aspiring entrepreneurs, or just business-minded women interested a more in-depth account of how she forged her own empire. She heads up multiple companies and had spread the wealth by starting an annual beauty conference for other digital content creators that aims to be the best in the industry. While a how-to beauty book seems like a good start, this is a woman who has a lot more to offer the world.

RELAUNCH! And Jane Austen

First of all: oh my god, you guys, the Serial podcast. I've listened to each episode twice by now, and the fact that there are only 3 out and none of them deal with what this Jay guy is all about is figuratively killing me. And the streaker!! Ok, I won't go any further. But if you're not listening to it, you should get in on the ground floor because every week is now full of delicious anticipation for a new episode. 

On to my main topic: Jane Austen. I, like many, have been obsessed with all things Austen for a while now. In fact, I can divide my not-insubstantial book collection into three categories: 1) fairy tales and imaginative re-tellings of them; 2) Austen novels and their many spin-offs; and 3) everything else. I have shelves full of Austen adaptions both good and terrible, with plots ranging from Elizabeth and Darcy as crime solvers to Elizabeth and Darcy: graphically horny rabbits for each other. So recently I was indulging in one Austen obsession when I stumbled upon another, and it got me thinking about how many Austen adaptions I've managed to make a regular part of my entertainment diet. So here, ordered by my approximation of when I became exposed to them, is my list of favorite Austen-inspired works. 

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

I'm going to be honest, I found out about this Emmy winning series while trawling through the fanfic boards of another Austen adaption. It's a YouTube series, which I had never watched before, because who has time for YouTube when I still haven't managed to watch the second season of OITNB? This, though, I binge-watched in ONE DAY. And there are 100 episodes. I was dubious after the first episode, but they auto-played and they're a scant 3 minutes, so by the third ep I was lost in the surprisingly well-crafted world of the modern-day Bennet sisters. 

The story unfolds over a series of vlogs made by Lizzie Bennet, who, in this iteration, is a grad student living at home with her parents and two sisters, Jane and Lydia, all of whom are tormented by their old-fashioned, marriage-obsessed mother. Bingley is turned into Bing Lee, some sort of internet businessman who just moved into town and brought his snooty GOOP-style sister Caroline and the insufferable, moneyed hipster Darcy, who really prefers the vintage sound of a gramophone and apparently wears pork-pie hats and bow ties. Lizzie Bennet herself is a charming narrator, Jane is appropriately pretty and nice, and Lydia translates excellently into a modern, boy-crazy teenager. We're introduced to the other characters, at first, through re-enactments undertaken by Lizzie and her best friend and vlog editor, film student Charlotte Lu. We do, eventually, meet the other characters in the flesh, as the vlogs go where Lizzie goes, and Lizzie goes where Austen's original plot takes her, right up to Pemberley, here an internet empire with offices in San Francisco, and right into Darcy, who does not, it turns out, wear pork-pie hats all that often. He does like his bow ties, though. 

I gather that as the series originally unfolded there was an interactive element to it, with all characters having real-life Twitter accounts that were updated to reflect where they were in all of this. There are also episodes thrown in where the characters answer real questions from fans. Other characters get their own vlogs, too, the most popular of which is Lydia's as she spends time away from the family and gets into trouble with that irascible George Wickham. Charlotte Lu gets her own vlog, briefly, as well as Georgiana in later episodes. So you get a sense of all of the characters as real people, since Lizzie's narration, as is pointed out in the series itself, limits our perception of events to Lizzie's own point of view and doesn't always reflect what may be actually occurring. You can order this series as a complete set on Amazon, which I've seriously considered even though it's free on YouTube, because sometimes a person isn't always attached to a WiFi connection.

Lost in Austen

Lost in Austen originally aired as a miniseries in the UK and is now available on DVD. The series heroine, Amanda Price, is a P&P obsessed 20-something who discovers Elizabeth Bennet in her bathroom getting handsy with her underthings, fresh from a portal linking her world to Amanda's modern-day London flat. You'll have to suspend disbelief as Amanda chooses to step through the door, leaving Elizabeth in 21st century London as Amanda emerges into the Bennet house to take Elizabeth's place in the story, clad in pleather leggings and a tunic top. Initially excited to find herself right at the beginning of the novel, her beloved tale quickly begins to fall apart as she realizes her presence is skewing things in ways she can't control. 

This version turns a LOT of the Austen canon on it's head, which I gather upset a lot of viewers when it first aired, but for some reason I loved it. The characters are introduced exactly as you'd expect them to be and then deviate in ways that, to me, feel organic. Some of them even serve to satisfy issues readers might have with the original characters. Bingley, in this version, is forced to deal with the consequences of his weak-minded foolishness. Darcy, in turn, gets a very satisfying fist to the face for his presumptuous meddling. It's honestly the sexiest Bingley's ever been (also helped by the fact that Bingley here is played by Tom Mison, now of Sleepy Hollow and your dreams). Jane, too, gets the chance to exhibit some strength after finding little reward in the virtue of obedience when it lands her in miserable circumstances that benefit everyone but herself. The result is actually a more satisfying love story between Jane and Bingley, with both of them really having to jump some hurdles to end up together, as opposed to the tepid B-pairing they formed in Austen's original novel. 

George Wickham, too, gets a refreshingly redemptive story line as a bastard with a heart of gold. The only problem is that, as a result, he comes off better than Darcy, who never deviates from the book version and suffers because of it. With all the supporting characters suddenly so vibrantly fleshed-out, choosing to maintain Darcy's aloofness renders him less a romantic hero and more of a curmudgeonly turd. He ends up with the right woman, of course, but in this case sticking with the Austen ending - as opposed to, say, leaving the miserable bastard alone to contemplate his never-ceasing self-righteousness - was a little disappointing. I found myself wishing Amanda had ended up with Wickham, who was much more her speed, and I turned to the internet to see who agreed and that's where fanfic didn't let me down. Still, I've seen this movie countless times and it's always charming, funny and enjoyable, so it's definitely on my list of favorite adaptions. It also has some very funny lines about pubic topiaries and ladies who steer the punt from the Cambridge end. 

Persuasion

This is, perhaps, my favorite of all of the Austen novels, and the movie does it justice, in my opinion. I love that the characters aren't young and fresh-faced fools in a rage to marry themselves off. It's romance is heightened by the fact that our heroine has resigned herself to solitude and our hero has sworn her off before they find their way to each other again. Plus "you pierce my soul" is just the best line ever. 

Anne Elliott is an unmarried woman in her late 20's who, in spite of two previous marriage proposals, is largely reconciled to whiling her days away in elegant spinsterhood at the familial estate in the country, plagued only by her vain, foppish father and equally vapid older sister. Anne's unexpected reunion with the only man she's ever loved, the once rejected, now unreachable Captain Wentworth, is full of the little agonies and delights of falling in love. Every snub and every glance is full of frisson, and Amanda Root conveys Anne's quiet dignity as she navigates it all to perfection. Ciaran Hinds is no slouch as Captain Wentworth, going through the motions of courting other women but really bringing the passion once he realizes it's Anne he's wanted all along. This is totally a movie I watch when I'm home sick or just gloomy about the world, because as long as Anne and Captain Wentworth can find their way to each other again and again, then things can't be all that bad. 

Bridget Jones's Diary

Because duh. I own both the book and the movie, although I find the movie superior because Colin Firth, plus that hilariously pathetic street fighting scene. Mr. Darcy throwing his battered suit jacket over his shoulder and strolling away slays me every time. 

BBC's Pride and Prejudice

This is, obviously, the Gold Standard of adaptions. Colin Firth as Darcy does this thing with his face where the muscles are fighting to let his emotions through but somehow still can't conquer his will to control them. Jennifer Ehle is sublime. It has Saffy from AbFab being an utter brat. Above all, it's largely loyal to the book, which has perhaps won this adaption it's place at the top of many an Austenites list just as much as any soak-shirted lake scene has. 

There are, of course, more adaptions of Austen's work than I can possibly cover in one blog post, and many that I've seen or read but found disappointing. I hear I need to watch the Romola Garai-lead version of Emma, and in researching the topic for this post I've just come across Kandukondain Kandukondain, which seems to be highly recommended. It also stars Aishwarya Rai, who was in Bride and Prejudice, which I debated covering but honestly didn't much care for, as I find Martin Henderson exceedingly creepy. Then, of course, there's the promise of more Austen adaptions. Lost in Austen is getting an American rewrite. And, while I have no reason to believe it will ever be made, my own personal favorite Austen adaption can be summed up by this Twitter exhange: 

Tell me: who wouldn't want to see this unfold?

Movie Night and Reminiscing About the Teenage Experience

Earlier this evening I headed to the local dollar theater to see a movie I’d been interested in seeing when I saw the trailer for it, but had somehow missed when it was in wide release, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In general I find coming-of-age stories supremely annoying, particularly because so many of them are from that oh-so-oppressed upper-middle class white male suburban perspective, and you only get a girl protagonist when she’s poor and/or when abuse is going to be a factor because, apparently, girls don’t have anything interesting to say about adolescence unless theirs has been violated. BUT, in spite of my prejudices, I’m also a sucker for a good group of misfits. Plus, the soundtrack to this bolstered my faith that the filmmakers knew what they were doing.

My motivation for seeing the film now, as opposed to waiting for it on DVD like I normally would, was based on it being mentioned as a potential Oscar contender for Best Adapted Screenplay. For some reason I’ve decided this is the year I’m going to have seen all the films mentioned in the Oscar race before the Oscars actually air, as opposed to how I normally watch Oscar films: after they’ve won and can merit nothing but my dismay that nothing about them lived up to the hype.  This is a disappointing way to watch movies year after year, so while attempting to do my due diligence as an aspiring screenwriter I seem to have strayed into someone else’s teenage film. I did not know Tuesday “Dollar Movie Night!” was the go-to mecca for teens in the area, and having come from a sparsely attended 8:00PM movie earlier that evening (The Sessions, which I may write about later), I was not expecting a crowd that reflected opening night attendance at 10:00PM and seemed to be comprised (almost) entirely of teenagers. Said teens appeared to have at least a passing familiarity with each other as they took their seats and began casing the joint for other familiar faces to excitedly wave to, or, of course, text, because talking is gauche for the youth of America. I felt incredibly old and out of place and wondered if it had been silly of me to be so keen on seeing a film that was clearly not addressing my demographic, but my misgivings were fleeting and I even managed to repress any urge to tell the boys behind me to stop jerking the whole row around as they crossed and uncrossed their ankles from over the seatbacks.

All that said, I now have to say it was the perfect environment in which to watch this movie. I did not know being a teenager has a smell, but it does, and it smells like: sour gummy worms, fruit-based body sprays, spiced rum in a giant cherry cola that the whole row is sharing, too much aftershave, hair products, and the soles of hot shoes. It sounded like giggles and whispers and crackling wrappers and squeaking seats and shifting feet, but throughout the movie all their fidgeting just kept me in mind of who I was watching the movie with, and how the drama unfolding on the screen probably seemed like an extension of their own lives just then. For me it was about indulgent smiles, remembering certain feelings or being able to appreciate how well the film captured the general painful self-consciousness of being a teenager. These kids, however, were so engaged with the movie, squirming along with every awkward on-screen kiss and laughing in sympathy at every exasperated expression. When the two main protagonists finally kissed the entire room fell into a breathless silence. The whole theater moaned in unison at shocking revelations, and I heard more than one sniffle when one of the characters had to go away to college. I can remember that end-of-high-school feeling, that rapid unraveling of the cocoon. Without my Oscars resolution I would have watched this movie alone at home and smiled over what it made me remember, but watching along with such an engaged audience put me on some sort of empathetic teenage-hormone high, and by the end of the movie when everyone clapped (again, in a 10PM screening on a Tuesday night at the dollar theater) I somehow felt that I had, like, just watched a movie that really GETS being a teenager. It actually tied in beautifully with one of the final monologues, about knowing that the rest of life was coming, even as you’re living your youth, and you can feel those moments that are just going to be memories some day. I could feel all the energy in the room practically zero in on that part, and I absolutely remember having that feeling, too, and deciding to embrace any particularly joyous moment even tighter because of it. But it also made me realize how much I’ve grown (although as I exited the theater and sidled past groups of teens still searching the faces around them for someone they might know, I kept repeating to myself “I still get carded. I still get carded. I have good skin. They may not know.”).

As I drove home and recovered from my relapse into acute self-awareness, I felt more of a sweet nostalgia, as opposed to any yearning, for my teenage years. Yeah, I wish I’d been a little cooler. I wish I would have known that everyone else felt just as uncertain about everything as I did. I also wanted to text my high school best friend and go, “I finally found out where everyone was going all those nights we drove around wondering what other kids were up to!”, because, seriously, dollar movies -who knew? But the world is so small when you’re a teenager. It’s shocking to discover how big it gets once you’re out of the playpen of high school, and it’s dismaying to find that all those relationships you thought were so important were mostly relationships of convenience or circumstance.

There’s a certain amount of delicious anticipation in first experiences that I guess is what all coming-of-age films are about, and that’s probably why we keep coming back to them. I’d hazard to guess they’re so popular because those same experiences eventually become mundane as they wend their way into our adult lives. But it was nice for a night to be reminded of that blind enthusiasm that thrives in teenagers, and to get a little contact high and feel like, even for me, life hasn’t stopped being full of wonderful possibilities.

Engineering Miracles

Today is a rare day, not only because of the date, but because when I woke up it was so cold and gray all I wanted to do was stay in and be cozy and watch Lifetime Christmas movies and not go to work…and then work got cancelled. Serendipitous! Only instead of leaping into a pair of sweatpants and gleefully cackling through over-engineered romantic slapstick and schmaltz, I apparently consented to let my computer eat my morning, and that morning has consisted of me forming the resolve to finally start posting on my blog. There's an array of sites I've bookmarked for inspiration purposes that have, instead, served to intimidate me out of bothering to write anything, but today for some reason none of them seemed all that great. Perhaps today I just care less. Either way, the Band-Aid has been ripped off, the seal has been broken, the Rule of Three has been invoked and cannot be left hanging. From here on out it will be all essays, reviews, musings, and perhaps the occasional seasonally-appropriate holiday limerick. Welcome aboard.