Decalogue

Over the weekend, I finally finished Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, an epic film composed of ten one hour films, each film based (loosely) on the ten commandments. It took me nearly five months to watch all ten movies. Thanks to Netflix, I was able to 'rent' the two DVDs for all this time.

Somehow, I lost track of the exact impulse for why I decided to watch this 'film'. I must have been looking at film recommendations ("if you liked this, then look at this..."), and saw it there. Roger Ebert lists it as a "great movie". I would agree that this is a most impressive body of work.

Of the ten films, I enjoyed Decalogue V ("Thou shalt not kill") and VIII ("Thou shalt not bear false witness") the most.

V was a haunting, searing look at capital punishment, and that seems to be a theme I'm exploring this year (An American Tragedy and The Executioner's Song both deal with capital punishment). Petty crimes lead up to murder, and the murder in this film is particularly brutal and random. I won't be forgetting that painful execution scene, nor the defense lawyer's own anguish ("I abhor it! I abhor it!").

In VIII, a little Jewish girl during the World War II seeks refuge in a Christian safe-house, with the requirement that she have a Christian baptismal certificate. The girl is rebuffed by a stern woman who would not "bear false witness" by doctoring false baptismal certificates. Fast forward forty years: the little girl is now a woman, and she visits Poland to confront the stern woman (who is a professor of ethics), in a meeting of the minds that was wonderfully moving.

The other eight stories are no less compelling. All of the stories pose questions about God's commandments, but it was not a dry catechism-like treatment. Ordinary stories were dramatically portrayed with the commandments as a backdrop. The entire work is amazing, and well worth the effort to watch.

Learning My Tools

The only New Year's resolution I'm doing well at is "learn more about Microsoft Office." I've been using Microsoft Word and Excel for many years. I take their presence for granted. In fact, I haven't once cracked open a book about Word (although I do own Word 97 for Dummies).

Last year, I saw someone (OK, my wife!) doing a highly repetitive task in Word 97. Her task was to search for a word denoting a section, delete the next twenty lines, then reformat the remaining 'block' (something along these lines). There would be as many as thirty sections in this document. During that weekend, I copied her document, and tried to get Word to do this task for me. That weekend, I scratched the surface of Word macros.

Fast forward to today: I subscribe to Woody's Office Watch. This e-mail newsletter is chock full of nifty behind-the-scenes stuff on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook. I try to learn a new 'feature' every time I'm in one of these Office tools.

This is the crux of my New Year's resolution: learning my tools. Microsoft Office is a big beast. I'm on an ancient version (Office 97). But it's a beast that's worth learning, because it's ubiquitous, and it contains features that can often save you time.

Ron's Birthday

Yesterday was my brother Ron's birthday. He was the best man at my wedding, and he is the godfather of my daughter.

The Executioner's Song

I'm presently reading The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer. It's a long book (over a thousand pages), and it somewhat mirrors the story line from Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.

Last night, I read a powerful sentence by Mailer:

The violence of Portland licked right up to the edge of the store and left a spew like that yellow foam on city beaches where old rubber dries out with jellyfish and whiskey bottles and the dead squid.

What an amazing sentence! Such imagery! You feel the words when they're strung together so superbly.

How did I chance to be reading this? A few months ago, I read an article about Louis Menand, who recently wrote The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. Mr. Menand was asked what his favorite books were, and one of them was The Executioner's Song. He had high enthusiasm for this book, and I made a mental note to pick this up as soon as I could. I have not been disappointed so far, and I don't anticipate being disappointed.

I once thought it'd be an interesting exercise to describe the various threads between the ten books I've read so far this year, but the leading spark has been, more often than not, whimsy. Still, it delights me when whimsy leads me to text like I've read in Mailer's book. I'm savoring every bit of it.

Concord and Merrimack

A few weeks ago, the Boston Globe ran an article on Henry David Thoreau, the famous recluse/philosopher who wrote Walden. The article was about how people misunderstood Thoreau's writings. I read articles like this, and it makes me want to hole up in a library for a week reading Thoreau. What is there to misunderstand? What was his main message?

So over the past few nights, I've dipped into A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. This was his first published book (1849). I have one of those 'handsome home-library three-volume set' of Thoreau's work from the Book-of-the-Month Club: Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and The Maine Woods.

The Boston Globe article said that A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers is fairly impenetrable. The foreword to my edition states that reading this from cover to cover would be a tough diet.

I would somewhat agree with both of these. He spends a good portion of the book ranting. He goes from a detailed look at the specific biology on these rivers, to a discourse on various religions. Sprinkled throughout are pithy wisdoms ("He who resorts to the easy novel, because he is languid, does no better than if he took a nap."). This was a man who thought, and then wrote it down.

Every weekday, I go over the Concord River, on Route 3. It's a short bridge. Now I find myself looking down the river, as I pass by. It is so peaceful. And Thoreau canoed past this spot once.

I don't necessarily plan to read all of this book, but I will be dipping into it. I need something to think about when I go over that brief bridge.

Nicola's

I spent $6 on a tee-shirt from place where Jenn and I get take-out pizza practically every Friday, Nicola Pizza House (1215 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, 781-646-6090). We've been eating pizza from here since we moved to Arlington, over four years ago.

The owners know me by now. Nicky always gives a big hello whenever I place my usual order. I once didn't have money, and they let me get on their tab.

At Nicola's, they also make pastries: cannoli, tiramisu, cheese cake. Sometimes, I'll splurge and grab one of these, much to the delight of Mary, the sharp-tongued matriarch who occasionally slings pizza boxes with her boys. Nicola's has also brought us great sandwiches, pasta dinners, salads, and fish and chips. Lately, we've been getting mozzarella sticks with our pizza.

There was much kidding when I announced Jenn and I were having a baby. They thought I'd be ordering a few more pizzas every week. As it is, I can't wait to share Nicola's with Mia when she gets old enough to appreciate pizza. Anyway, I have the tee-shirt.

Trip to Graceland

I posted my trip to Graceland web page on Yahoo! a few months ago. Every once in a while, I get a note from some Internet visitor, saying the pictures were nice. Today's e-mail was from New Zealand, and the writer expressed gratitude because she said she was not likely to make a pilgrimage to Memphis.

By the way: The final song in Cast Away? "Return to Sender", as sung by Elvis.