John Bul Dau is a Sudanese Lost Boy, a Dinka. At the age of 13 he was forced to flee his home and walk a thousand miles, first to Uganda, then to Kenya. At the age of 13 he says he was tall and looked older – so he was put in charge of the care of 1,200 younger children. To worry about feeding them. To comfort the scared and the sick and bury the dead.
John Bul Dau is one of the lucky ones. At the age of 23 he was chosen for asylum in the United States. Catholic Charities assisted him and three other Lost Boys in relocating to Syracuse, New York. There, he worked two, sometimes three jobs to send money to the boys left behind in the camps.* He put off his dream of attending college to aid his family; the father, mother and six other siblings who somehow survived the civil war. He worked, and continues to work, tirelessly to encourage the other transplanted lost boys to maintain their identities as Africans and educate the public about the violence that robbed him of his home and family.
John Bul Dau is possibly one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever seen.
The film also follows the stories of Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Blor, who find asylum in Pittsburgh. It was painful to see the worst qualities of the residents of my city on screen. How the merchants called the police and complained when the boys came into their stores in large groups. The looks on the faces of some of the residents in Giant Eagle as the boys learned about bread and balloons. The sense of isolation that lead one of the boys to a mental breakdown.
It was rewarding to see the best qualities of the residents on screen. The store worker who gave away doughnuts so the boys would learn what sprinkles tasted like. The little girls at the pool who chatted happily about the Sudan. The volunteer at Catholic Charities who taught the boys how to turn on a light switch, adjust the shower and guided them through the piles of paperwork.
It was strange to see my city through the eyes of strangers.
*The boys also had to repay the United States government for the cost of the plane ticket to the U.S.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
So Strange I Can't Pass it Up
Between now and July 1...
I am hoping that the lack of sleep is the reason why W decided to tell me that her husband had “fallen off the porn wagon again”. In the context of her recent admission that one of her previous jobs was data entry at a porn distributor, I could not help but wonder where she met her husband and how she defines falling off the porn wagon. Did he fall a little bit off, as in cracking open a Playboy and claiming he was reading the articles? Did he rent a video? Go on a bender and buy out the store? Does he have a serious addiction that requires therapy?
I am flummoxed.
- I will not look at the cost of flights.
- I will go to the airport early to see if I can fly standby on an earlier flight.
- I will wire the landlord an advance for the apartment I am renting, to make sure that I have a place to stay in case I am a victim of the law of averages again.
- I will not take my computer with me this year.
- I will remember to put a clean shirt and pair of underwear in my carry on, in case my luggage goes missing again.
- I will not purchase that wide angle zoom lens since I need money to pay for my $1286.30 plane ticket.
- I will, however, order the CDMA/GSM phone with AC & European power adapters, so J can stop worrying about me wandering European streets alone.
I am hoping that the lack of sleep is the reason why W decided to tell me that her husband had “fallen off the porn wagon again”. In the context of her recent admission that one of her previous jobs was data entry at a porn distributor, I could not help but wonder where she met her husband and how she defines falling off the porn wagon. Did he fall a little bit off, as in cracking open a Playboy and claiming he was reading the articles? Did he rent a video? Go on a bender and buy out the store? Does he have a serious addiction that requires therapy?
I am flummoxed.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)
J was unsurprised when I insisted on seeing this movie on Friday night. As I am a huge fan of folk/fairy tales and legends, watching this movie was an absolute must and I had a great time spending two hours dissecting the source material.
Guillermo del Toro borrows from British, Greek, Roman, Danish, German and Christian mythology* to weave together a story almost unbearably brutal, so violent in places that I had to turn my head away from the screen and wait for J to tell me when it was OK to look again. Characters are struck, beaten to death, tortured and shot. One scene shows the amputation of a man's leg.
In Ofelia's (Ophelia) fantasy world the creatures are strange, the fairies are not pretty and there are monsters everywhere, a mirror reflection of her real life. She must face fantastical creatures including a giant toad and the Pale Man, a horrible creature who sees through eyes in his hands.
The two most significant complaints about the movie are that it is not appropriate for children and that it was too derivative. The underlying assumptions of these complaints is that the only appropriate audience for mythology is children and all forms of fantasy must be purely original. If that is the case, then I should turn in my Harry Potter, my Hans Christian Anderson and my collection of tales from the Brother's Grimm and immerse myself in Disney cartoons until I choke.
*Mythology in the all-inclusive, generic sense of the word.
Guillermo del Toro borrows from British, Greek, Roman, Danish, German and Christian mythology* to weave together a story almost unbearably brutal, so violent in places that I had to turn my head away from the screen and wait for J to tell me when it was OK to look again. Characters are struck, beaten to death, tortured and shot. One scene shows the amputation of a man's leg.
In Ofelia's (Ophelia) fantasy world the creatures are strange, the fairies are not pretty and there are monsters everywhere, a mirror reflection of her real life. She must face fantastical creatures including a giant toad and the Pale Man, a horrible creature who sees through eyes in his hands.
The two most significant complaints about the movie are that it is not appropriate for children and that it was too derivative. The underlying assumptions of these complaints is that the only appropriate audience for mythology is children and all forms of fantasy must be purely original. If that is the case, then I should turn in my Harry Potter, my Hans Christian Anderson and my collection of tales from the Brother's Grimm and immerse myself in Disney cartoons until I choke.
*Mythology in the all-inclusive, generic sense of the word.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Dear New YMCA Members
I think that it is great that you decided to join a gym. I remember how difficult it was to get used to working out with a whole bunch of strange people, always worrying about a stray bead of sweat or that someone will walk off with my towel.
Please feel free to stop by the desk and get directions to the locker room. While you are there, have one of the staff introduce you to this really neat little invention called a “lock”. See with a lock you can store you stuff in an equally interesting object called a “locker” without worrying about someone stealing it. If you don't have a lock, you can turn over your driver's license and a member of the staff will loan you one for the duration of your workout.
Imagine how nice it will be to move from station to station without lugging your coat, scarf, hat, backpack and extra pair of sweatpants with you! Imagine how grateful other patrons will be to have one less obstacle to trip over.
Please stop carrying the disinfectant spray bottles from station to station. I don't know if you noticed, but there actually is a finite number of bottles. That number is significantly lower than the number of people working out at any given moment. And while we are discussing this, please stop giving me an ugly look when I use “your” spray bottle to wipe down a machine. Finite number of bottles, remember?
Is it really necessary to remain attached to your cell phone during a workout? Really?
Is it really necessary to pout when you cannot get a treadmill next to your friend? Really?
Please feel free to stop by the desk and get directions to the locker room. While you are there, have one of the staff introduce you to this really neat little invention called a “lock”. See with a lock you can store you stuff in an equally interesting object called a “locker” without worrying about someone stealing it. If you don't have a lock, you can turn over your driver's license and a member of the staff will loan you one for the duration of your workout.
Imagine how nice it will be to move from station to station without lugging your coat, scarf, hat, backpack and extra pair of sweatpants with you! Imagine how grateful other patrons will be to have one less obstacle to trip over.
Please stop carrying the disinfectant spray bottles from station to station. I don't know if you noticed, but there actually is a finite number of bottles. That number is significantly lower than the number of people working out at any given moment. And while we are discussing this, please stop giving me an ugly look when I use “your” spray bottle to wipe down a machine. Finite number of bottles, remember?
Is it really necessary to remain attached to your cell phone during a workout? Really?
Is it really necessary to pout when you cannot get a treadmill next to your friend? Really?
Monday, February 05, 2007
Cold Day
It was so bitterly cold today that I waited until sunrise to walk to my bus stop in the mad hope that it would be marginally warmer then 3 degrees below zero. I was rewarded with -2 degree temperatures and my favorite on bus entertainment.
My favorite meth addicts were back on the bus today, bundled up and the conversation was rocking. Literally – it centered around one man's “vintage” Pink Floyd t-shirts, circa 2002, which he intended to leave to his children and his (female) companion's tenuous connection to an autographed Keith Richards guitar, complete with pick. Her Keith Richards-guitar-story set the man off on a rant about how hard David Bowie is on his guitars and how amazing it is that Bowie is able to get any sound out it. From that he segued into how much of hack Keith Richards is as a guitar playing, stealing riffs and techniques from other players and that, essentially, he “sucked”.
During my mercifully brief walk to my office, I reflected on the idea that a t-shirt could be an heirloom and wondered if one purchased in 2002 could actually count as “vintage”. Downtown Pittsburgh was so empty and so cold that I abandoned the notion of stopping at Starbucks and headed straight to my office.
I also elected to skip the gym in favor of getting home before the temperature dropped even further with the setting of the sun. Back in my house, I turned up the thermostat and made a mug of hot tea, grateful that my furnace was still working and my pipes were unfrozen, unlike one of my hapless co-workers.
Now the house is warm, Lucy is snuggly and I just finished half listening / half watching Rick Sebak's goofy documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like. Which I have on DVD.* The extras include the "Mystery" made by the now defunct Chiodo's Tavern.**
* I also purchased the companion cookbook.
** The tavern is now a parking lot for a Walgreen's.
My favorite meth addicts were back on the bus today, bundled up and the conversation was rocking. Literally – it centered around one man's “vintage” Pink Floyd t-shirts, circa 2002, which he intended to leave to his children and his (female) companion's tenuous connection to an autographed Keith Richards guitar, complete with pick. Her Keith Richards-guitar-story set the man off on a rant about how hard David Bowie is on his guitars and how amazing it is that Bowie is able to get any sound out it. From that he segued into how much of hack Keith Richards is as a guitar playing, stealing riffs and techniques from other players and that, essentially, he “sucked”.
During my mercifully brief walk to my office, I reflected on the idea that a t-shirt could be an heirloom and wondered if one purchased in 2002 could actually count as “vintage”. Downtown Pittsburgh was so empty and so cold that I abandoned the notion of stopping at Starbucks and headed straight to my office.
I also elected to skip the gym in favor of getting home before the temperature dropped even further with the setting of the sun. Back in my house, I turned up the thermostat and made a mug of hot tea, grateful that my furnace was still working and my pipes were unfrozen, unlike one of my hapless co-workers.
Now the house is warm, Lucy is snuggly and I just finished half listening / half watching Rick Sebak's goofy documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like. Which I have on DVD.* The extras include the "Mystery" made by the now defunct Chiodo's Tavern.**
* I also purchased the companion cookbook.
** The tavern is now a parking lot for a Walgreen's.
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