No shock here.  The virtually unbroken string of bad biopics apparently continues with Amelia. I will see it out of almost unqualified admiration for director Mira Nair, but nothing in the many reviews I have seen suggests that the film transcends  standard, tired biopic conventions.

Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” probably came the closest to reviving the whole genre. In fact, Van Sant may have fully succeeded (your call). But there are, I think,  some good reasons that biopic screenplays usually stink up the house:

- including every obligatory “sacred”  historic moment,  regardless of  how well they fit  into a coherent story or how true they might be

- the over-investment in making sure the actors look and sound like the people they are playing. I have always felt that  physical resemblance only works when the effort put into makeup, however precise,  is exceeded by the even greater  performance of a brilliant actor.  It makes perfect sense that the two best “look-alike” performances I have ever seen were by actors who are consensus members of the pantheon — Bruno Ganz in Der Untergang and Sean Penn in Milk. )

- the unavoidable hagiography

- the drive to be so exhaustively complete  that the story sinks from the weight of its self-conscious authority

- a director or actor so obsessed with an historical personality that he or she confuses the character in the film and the actual person being depicted.  (Kevin Spacey and Bobby Darin?) Rare but spooky.

The baffling thing here is that a great filmmaker like Mira Nair took on Amelia.

Mira Nair. The Mira Nair who made Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. The brilliant, luminous Mira Nair.

We need to remember that authenticity and accuracy are historical, not dramaturgical, concepts.

The very best films about lives don’t take on the heavy and weighted obligation of completeness. They pick an episode in a life and, through the unfolding of events and character during that episode, reveal aspects of a complex life. Capote, Henry and June, and Downfall (Der Untergang) are three good, random examples. These films also succeed by embedding the main character in a world of comparably interesting ,  and maybe even more  interesting,  characters.

I’ll leave you with one admittedly unconventional recommendation and one worry.

Recommendation: My favorite biopic really isn’t a biopic at all.  But with its crazy sensibility, hilarity, cast of grotesque characters, and overwhelming quirkiness, Tim Burton’s Ed Wood is my favorite “life-story” of them all.

Worry: Spielberg, as you may know, is doing Lincoln. I believe Liam Neeson got the part. My fear is that Lincoln’s  complex, even anguished , life could be buried beneath “Private Ryan” schmaltz,  expensive costumes, overwrought John Williams music,  the flood of signature close-ups of Lincoln’s face, and the quest for accuracy.  None of these equal compelling drama and conflict.  In fact, all this nonsense often hides a lack of compelling narrative.

We’ll see.

Adrienne's Vacation in Barbados, Crane's Beach, August 2009

“Somewhere beyond the Sea…

it’s far beyond the stars
it’s near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
my heart will lead me there soon…”

- Bobby Darin, “Beyond the Sea”

G’s away and the house feels incurably empty despite our clutter of cats. So I send this song out to G in hopes of seeing her again soon.

Song Recommendations

If you like this song, I also suggest:

• Dion and the Belmonts
• Etta James
• Frank Sinatra

I also suggest the music genre:

• Crooner

Click here for more info on Bobby Darin – “Beyond the Sea”.

The MP3 may be purchased here:

Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea

as i sit & absorb a backyard scene in midwest america, greece seems a world away. and it is – bustling airports & flight agendas & ocean & time zones away. it was a long return trip, and in many ways i feel like i am still on it.

it is midnight in athens, on a thursday night. i can only imagine what is happening on the street where i stood one week ago. i visualize the loud & beautiful nigerian girls; despite their short skirts & high heels, they run. they run for their lives – to chase cars stuffed with potential customers, or to flee the police who chase them into corners of the empty market. but that chase does not last long. we watch each girl return, because the first car offers an escape from life as she knows it. she only sees what is directly before her – this need to pay off the trafficker who has her life on hold.

last thursday i had to say goodbye to sara, whose arrest we had witnessed one week ago. i had the most difficulty telling her that i would probably not talk to her again. she asked about a phone call or future visits. i wanted to lie to her & to myself … to say “see you later.” it’s just simpler – that after finding her every week, writing out verses for her, waiting for hours at the court for her trial, praying for her – to think that we can continue our friendship.

i don’t know what will happen to sara. i don’t have any great ideas to follow through with her. i can just pray for her, even when i don’t feel like that’s enough. will you do the same?

thank you for your loving support during my time with nea zoi. i couldn’t have gone without my friends & fam.

she laughed in my face. the first time i met lisa, she twirled around & ran away, hysterical with laughter. she pulled the girls standing around her into the fun game as well. the idea that we could help her find a new job was a good joke. the hardened reality around lisa told her “you were brought here illegally from nigeria. this is a limited place. you know how to do one thing for money, and that is all you can do.” unfortunately, i find a piece of myself initially understanding – the side of me that sees only that dark street & the work they feel forced to do.

even if it is ever so slow, hope starts to creep in & faith reminds that there is much more than this. they can choose something different, but they must choose to accept our help. this requires a trust that we must build as nea zoi street volunteers. we have noticed a complete difference in how open & accepting the nigerian girls have been as we become more consistent in our late night outreaches. this month we are trying a more intense program, where we visit them 3 times a week & have a central location from which to share food, literature & conversation. a more constant presence has changed everything, even lisa. i look for her every time & she’s now willing to talk & laugh with me.

although the chaos of the street where the girls work never slows down, we have become a more comfortable part of the scenery this month. while we usually walk through their area, now we are planted in a central location, asking the girls to meet us halfway. it’s interesting how much a small table can change things. we have made several friends in the last weeks, and the girls are beginning to recognize us more as well. i’m excited for this time, but know it will come to a close as summer vacation begins. it will also come to a close for me as i pack up to head home 1 august.

please pray for these girls. pray that nea zoi can continue to be a regular presence on this street, with people who know these girls by name – who befriend & pray for them. it is difficult to leave, but i think it’s even more difficult to be left. pray fiercely for them.

i appointed you to go & bear fruit – fruit that will last. (jesus, in john 15:16)

TU grads serving at Nea Zoi! (me, stacie, nicole)

It’s depressing…
Many moons ago when I moved here I used to listen to kool 94.5, which was the valley’s premier oldies station(and a damn good one!) To me, what constitutes “oldies” is the music from the period of the 50’s and 60’s, but slowly over the last few years I started noticing the so called “oldies station” playing newer and newer stuff right up into the new wave jams of the 80’s. Now I understand their rationale of course…since the 70’s and 80s are now a long time ago, it is now considered old music. It is much like that scene in Back to the Future II(featuring a young pre-pubescent Elijah Wood!) where the Nintendo game Wild Gunman has become an antique in the year 2015. “You mean you have to use your hands?! That’s like a baby’s toy!” Also many of the people in the age demographic nostalgic for songs from the 50’s and 60’s are aging and have been dying off. There is just less of an ad market for that crowd. Supply and demand etc etc.
Basically kool 94.5 at this point plays mostly 70’s rock and some 80’s.
So I started exploring the dial a bit and for the last 2 years have been listening to AM 1440 Arizona Gold, which was a terrific little AM oldies station until a couple months ago when out of nowhere the format changed to sports talk radio in the evening and cooking shows in the afternoon(they still have some oldies dispersed unpredictably throughout the day.) Virtually the same thing happened with AM 1480, which was the only other station I liked. It played lounge music form Dean Martin, Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt etc.
until it was up and replaced without warning when “liberal talk radio” returned to the station. I actually began listening to sports talk radio show, and learned quite a bit about a lot of stuff I’m not interested in, and I even sat through some of liberal talk radio to see if I was missing any variables in my equations which I inevitably am….but I enjoy oldies music and always have. When I was 16 and got my first Ford stationwagon, I only listened to the oldies station(which I attribute to both the influence of my reading of “Stephen King’s Christine” my freshman year of High School, and also the effect of listening to many 60’s cassette tapes with my mom on the way to my many Catholic grade school basketball games.)

You might be reading this and thinking “Why not just get an MP3 player or Ipod, dock it in your car and listen to whatever goddamn music you want?”

Fair enough, but one of the great things about the radio was the unpredictability of what song was going to be played and the romanticism of a song coming on at just the right moment, setting off the endorphins in your brain. There was also that by patiently suffering through a few songs you weren’t fond of, that you might actually discover a new song. These days people have little patience, and will change the channel in two seconds something doesn’t grab their attention instantly. It reminds me of that book The Closing of the American Mind for it is only by forcing yourself to sort through some things you may not like, that you can discover new things that you will. Most people these days seem to lack that sort of discipline. In fact, self discipline and tedious lonely work, are simply no longer valued in today’s society. If one has doesn’t have to ever encounter anything but what confirms they are looking for, why should they bother having to be be bothered by unpleasantness, which brings us to another book, “Brave New World”

I guess I wasn’t trying to make that much of a statement here other than just to say that in a city as large as Phoenix, where there are like 18 stations playing Mexican Mariachi music, a bunch of right wing talk demagogue stations(and even a liberal station… two liberal stations if you count NPR, a plethora of sports stations, a boatload of ghetto hip hop and r and b stations, a couple of 70’s 80’s working class rock stations, and the generic mainstream modern pop stations that play that song “somebody told me that you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend…etc” and other computer generated market researched music….

can’t we have one station in a city this big that plays Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” or the Dovell’s “The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol when they do the Bristol stomp?”

I guess I will start listening to some other stations and see what they might have to offer. Maybe I will actually learn to enjoy listening to golf on the radio, or soccer moms talking about recipes for crowned rack of lamb.

REPOPULATE: Bobby Darin: Dream Lover | FreakyTrigger

Klein represented dozens of artists, including Sam Cooke, the Animals, Bobby Darin and Herman&s Hermits. He changed the music industry when he represented Sam Cooke in negotiations with RCA, winning the artist control of his own master …

Klein represented dozens of artists, including Sam Cooke, the Animals, Bobby Darin and Herman&s Hermits. He changed the music industry when he represented Sam Cooke in negotiations with RCA, winning the artist control of his own master …

Klein broke into the music business by auditing record labels on behalf of clients including Bobby Darin and Connie Francis. When he found they were owed royalties, he took half of the difference as a fee. …

Klein represented dozens of artists, including Sam Cooke, the Animals, Bobby Darin and Herman&s Hermits. He changed the music industry when he represented Sam Cooke in negotiations with RCA, winning the artist control of his own master …

Klein broke into the music business by auditing record labels on behalf of clients including Bobby Darin and Connie Francis. When he found they were owed royalties, he took half of the difference as a fee. …

music played in the background & a table was piled with delicious food. laughter & playing children bounced around the room. balloons popped & cameras flashed.

it sounds like a typical party, but its purpose was exciting & unique. two weeks ago, nea zoi’s office filled with people who were there to celebrate the accomplishments of our three nigerian students. they just completed our eisodos (greek for “entrance”) program for vocational training. we were proud of their persistance in greek, computer, and life skills classes. we took an even greater delight in the relationships we’d build with these sweet girls over the past months, over meals shared & fun outings. after handing out certificates, congratulations, and hugs, it was difficult to say goodbye for the summer. but it was also a fun way to end our time together. i left feeling uplifted, and went straight into our late night outreach.

we originally met these three girls on a street in central athens, where the majority of trafficked nigerian girls work here in the city. it is a chaotic street on our late night outreaches, and we see the girls we meet in many stages. our three graduates have come a long way. as our small team worked its way down the street that night, we were reminded of the long struggle ahead of many of these girls if they decide to take the risks required to leave this street & this life.

my view of the evening slowly shifted from one of optimism to discouragement, as we moved down the street & realized that there were more girls than we’d expected. we should know by now that nothing about our work is predictable. we hadn’t foreseen the numbers because lately the athens police have been performing a city “sweep” & our girls have disappeared or, in the case of several brothels, been arrested & deported. so when as we saw & met about 50 girls that night, many whom we did not know, it was overwhelming. i personally felt defeated – back at square one – for a few days following.

i spent a lot of time reflecting on the contrast of the night’s two events, and what it reveals about our ministry here. the conclusion i came to is not something i always accept easily, but i believe it is truth. truth of which i must constantly remind myself: we are not here for numbers.

let’s face it, numbers look good. they say something about success. they represent something i can hold, or take a picture of, or count on my fingers. numbers are comforting in their tangibility & they do help in many ways. but they are not why i’m here. the hidden ones are why i’m here. that one girl who IS looking for a way out. the one who DOES call the next day, asking about a church or for medical help. the three who DO decide to show up for class. the one who finally wants to talk, when we show up week after week, still calling her by name.

who is going to be available for her, if we’re all looking for numbers?

is it not worth the effort, simply because i have to look twice to find them? i think it’s worth it, because Jesus did as well. he tells us about a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to look for one, a woman who drops her to do list for one little coin, an infinitely patient father who runs to runs to his dirty & disheveled son. even Jesus somehow decides who to heal in an entire crowd of people.

just one.

so while no one in nea zoi is here to do the least possible, we are determined to also be faithful in the small – praying God will make it tall.

“just? what a terrible, candle-snuffing word …”
- jm barrie in finding neverland

2 graduates + some nz staff

“you are either crazy, or paid a lot of money, to come here every week in this weather.”

so athens is hot in july. sizzling, if you will. on our last wednesday morning outreach to the brothels, a male madame made this keen observation to dina, one of our staff members.

apparently we’re crazy.

nz staff member, kiki & her adorable son xristos

Who doesn’t love Bobby Darin? Today’s Song of the Day is a classic from one of the greatest big band singers of all time. He is just so damn cool! Check him out in this footage of The Dan Raven Show from 1960. (Can you believe that’s almost 50 years ago?!)

…And don’t forget to check out Kevin Spacey’s version from the 2004 movie Beyond the Sea here.

Born Walden Robert Cassotto, Bobby Darin was an actor, singer/songwriter and entrepreneur. He was born to a poor, working-class family in the Bronx. Due to a few bouts of rheumatic fever, Darin suffered from a weak heart from childhood. He married famed actress Sandra Dee, married her and had a son. He died in 1973 of blood poisoning. Bobby Darin is the man. I suggest checking out other great hits like…

…Beyond the Sea and…

…Mack the Knife!

Frisian&s Other Favorites: Bobby Darin – For Teenagers Only [1960 …

REPOPULATE: Bobby Darin: Dream Lover. While Tom is off on paternity leave, this gives the popular comments crew the breathing space to look back at some of the older posts which due to shifting around servers, and comments systems may …

The Museum of Transportation has designated the Bobby Darin Dream Car as the feature attraction continuing March 13-15. Museum guests will find the Dream Car just inside the door of the Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center. …

The Museum of Transportation has designated the Bobby Darin Dream Car as the feature attraction continuing March 13-15. Museum guests will find the Dream Car just inside the door of the Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center. …

But with Bobby Darin&s recent success in the adult pop market (thanks to Mack the Knife and the Darin at the Copa LP), executives at Atco were understandably concerned that they were leaving behind some of Darin&s earliest fans (i.e., …

The Museum of Transportation has designated the Bobby Darin Dream Car as the feature attraction continuing March 13-15. Museum guests will find the Dream Car just inside the door of the Earl C. Lindburg Automobile Center. …

my cousin niki & i on a weekend getaway!

i’ll admit that i occasionally think of jesus’ apostles the way one would a next door neighbor. so far i’ve decided that i’d probably follow john around, in awe of his eloquence & trying to catch his observations. i would have trouble getting along with paul, quite frankly. as for peter, i think we’d be bff’s. i’d probably be calling him pete after a week or so.

i recognize something in the nature of peter that is very me-ish. i can’t help but have a good laugh when he blurts out an embarrassing statement, knowing that he is echoing recent thoughts i’ve had. i feel his pain when he realizes the gravity of denying the man he called messiah & savior, because i share a similar loathing for my selfish decisions. i rejoice in the strength god’s spirit gives peter as he becomes a leader in the radical movement that was the early church. his life story reminds me that there is constant hope, alongside short-fallings & growth. always something to look forward to.

and so. in the midst of a new season here in athens – the girls’ classes coming to an end, the city’s center becoming more crowded & chaotic, and working on a new schedule for nea zoi – we are pulled in many different directions. when problem-solving opportunities pop up here & there, i am reminded of how very small i am, in a different cultural context, band-aiding a multilayered societal issue, combined with my impulsive & outspoken self. if that is not potential for why did i say that, or eek i am useless scenarios, then i don’t know what is. this is where peter & i swap friendship bracelets & exchange our secret handshake.

then right before i conclude this whirlwind of doubts with a sort of helpless sarcasm, i come to john 13, which sites another one of peter’s classic blunders oh so familiar to me. he begins by refusing to accept a gift, the gift of jesus serving him by way of footwashing. he ends ends by practically signing up for the full spa experience. his childlike enthusiasm is so genuine – i just love the guy. & so does jesus, because he continues to encourage him, right up to his adamant requests that peter feed his beloved sheep. quite the task, for someone whose words make us cringe in half of his appearances. clearly jesus knew something we do not.

before he circles the room with towel & wash basin, john says that jesus knew it was time for him to go to his father. & “having loved his own who where in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.” when he is done washing feet, he passes it on to those who were just cleansed. “wash one another’s feet.” love one another. provide for one another. forgive one another.

& so it goes. because imperfect, stumbling men were washed with these perfect hands, they must do the same. because he chose to show them the full extent of his love, they are able to do the same. despite my out of place, seemingly insignificant, impulsive self, i will do the same.

(please pray for nea zoi, as we are undergoing many changes with staff, needs, and environment. we just want to communicate this love on athen’s streets.)