Being sick these past weeks has meant I've had a chance to catch up on some reading and watch hours and hours of movies and shows. Friends and relations made great recommendations for both. Thank you!
Here's what I've been spending time with:
Movies:
*The absolute, very best thing I saw was The Antidote: Stories of Kindness, Decency, And The Power Of Community. One of my best friends from my youth produced and directed this wonderful film, which profiles people and projects around the country that, as one leader profiled in the film says, build "economy, community, and mutual delight." Initiatives explored in the film serve people with disabilities, foster children, community college students living economically on a knife's edge, unhoused people, and underserved youth, among others. The film covers a lot of ground, but always feels spacious and generous, like the programs and people it describes. It really did feel like an appropriate antidote for what we're all slogging through these days, a shot in the arm of hope and possibility, and a reminder of what we're all capable of.
It will show in select theaters on October 16, including, locally, at Rialtos in El Cerrito and Berkeley. For info on where, when, and how you can see it: https://theantidotemovie.com/
*Crip Camp, Netflix
This was my absolute second favorite film. Amazing! It chronicles the extraordinary struggle of people with disabilities to gain basic civil rights. Berkeley, California was ground zero for that effort, but many of the major players in that movement had met during their youth at a radically inclusive summer camp on the east coast. Inspiring, eye-opening, and deeply moving. Everyone in the world should see this. People with sensory disabilities, cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities, multiple disabilities banded together and worked toward this vital common goal.
One of the main spokespeople in the film, Judy Heumann, is articulate, empathetic, sympathetic, real, genuine, intelligent, flexible, and firm. Seeing her in action is a reminder of the incredible diversity of talent we have in this country. Why can't Judy Heumann run for president?
*The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story
I double-featured this film with the one immediately below, which was a great way to see them. This is an extraordinary documentary, made in 2000, about a San bushman hunter living in the Kalahari Desert. It's stunning and humbling to have a window on this hunter's deep intimacy with the landscape and the natural world, on his ability to literally think like a cheetah or a kudu, and on the traditional foodways that sustain him and his people. One aspect that I found intriguing was the hunter's commitment to understanding and reconstructing the story of a hunted animal's last hours in order to share that story with others in his tribe. Beautiful and unusual.
It’s on YouTube:
*My Octopus Teacher, Netflix
Brothers Craig and Damon Foster made The Great Dance (above). More recently, Craig Foster returned to the South African cape where he had grown up to address issues of what sounded like depletion and exhaustion. He was drawn to the kelp forest where he had enjoyed swimming as a boy, and began a daily ritual of freediving in the frigid waters. (Without a wetsuit. Foster talks about the fantastic chemicals that bathe your brain as a result of cold exposure, that he began to crave that cold. Echoes of Wim Hof.)
During his dives, Foster gets to know an octopus, and they develop an absolutely beautiful interspecies friendship. This gorgeous movie is a reminder of our untapped potentialities as earth citizens, as well as the wisdom of intimate connection, over time, with a particular place on earth.
*A Knight's Tale, Netflix
A young Heath Ledger, a medieval tale punctuated creatively with modern music, and clear characters to root for and against. What's not to love?
*The Social Dilemma, Netflix
Years ago, Jerry Mander wrote Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television, in which he argued that the real threat of TV rested within the medium itself, not in the content it beamed into people's living rooms. So with The Social Dilemma, in which former power players in the field recount that the platforms themselves are designed to polarize people, addict individuals to their usage, and erode democracy. Most telling: Most of these former social platform big wigs, when asked about how much screen time they allow their children, say: None. Scary and important.
*Back To Eden, Amazon Prime
This one gets talked about a lot in permaculture circles. It features the planting regimen of Paul Gautschi, who through close observation of nature, developed a gardening plan that relies heavily on mulch. Gautschi lives on Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, in an area with very little annual rainfall, yet his mulched garden only requires supplemental water when the plants are very young. Useful and inspiring information for gardeners and growers in dry California and other arid parts.
Shows:
*Borgen, Netflix
I love, love, loved this, even though it breaks my rule of trying to stay away from stuff with subtitles. This is the (fictional) story of Denmark's first woman prime minister (although Denmark has had a woman prime minister; this is not her story). Particularly worth watching in an election year, this show lays out how a country with a very different political system builds a coalition government. The show does a fantastic job of showing the toll public life can take on a woman's personal life. Many interesting women characters—many interesting male characters too. It's great to see a female head of state absolutely fluent in multiple languages and so quick on her feet. This is a psychologically and socially smart show with characters that evolve. Absolutely fantastic.
*Schitt's Creek, Netflix
I avoided this one for a long time because it didn't seem like my kind of thing. But it appeared on so many "Best" lists that I gave it a try. It is wonderful and hopeful. It's about acceptance, love, community, and family. Quirky characters that grow and change in ways that are internally consistent and believable. Very funny. The uber-wealthy and privileged Rose family loses everything and ends up in a small town in Ontario. Caution and suspicion give way to generosity of spirit and openness. I cried watching this show on more than one occasion, moved to happy tears.
Books:
*Independence Days by Sharon Astyk
This was a re-read for me. I remembered that it had been published around the time of the 2008 financial crash (2009, as it turns out), and that it outlined the hows and whys of storing food for hard times. Seemed relevant to our current state of affairs. Useful and encouraging.
*Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
I'm a huge David Goggins fan and have found his story of changing his life completely—from working as an exterminator in a low-paying job and being unfit, overweight, and afraid of the water to becoming a Navy SEAL, an ultramarathon runner, and a triathlete—very inspirational. Goggins's honesty about his experience of childhood abuse and poverty is generous. This is his first book, where he tells his life story in detail. I loved it. One of Goggins's beliefs is that we tap into only 40% of our potential (a theme in some of the movies described above).
*Why I Have Not Written Any Of My Books by Marcel Benabou
This is a short, funny, ironic book. Of course, Benabou has written at least one of his books—this one. He admits that this book closely resembles a book, but insists that it is a nonbook. Provocative, paradoxical, fun.
*See It Feelingly by Ralph James Savarese
Savarese is a college English professor and the father of a son with autism. In this book, he shares his experiences working 1:1 with autistic readers using classic literature, including Moby Dick and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? As always results when someone takes time to genuinely listen to people who perceive differently, who, for example, "see it feelingly," these readers prove themselves insightful and perceptive, and bring something fresh and new to the reading of these familiar works. This is a generous and positive book, and one gets a clear feeling for the kindness and magnanimity that Savarese brings to the project.