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January 1, 2001
How unfamiliar, to be dating an entry with the number "2001". And yet, every year is the same, getting used to that unfamiliar new number, writing the wrong date on checks sometimes for the first few weeks. 01/01/01. We won't have a repeating number like that for a while. The new millenium. It isn't really the new millenium, of course, except to the anal-retentives who think that there was no year zero. Of course there was a year zero! The thermometer doesn't go right from -1 to +1, does it? Everything uses zeroes except street addresses and the floors of buildings (and even there, you could argue that the European habit of numbering only the upper stories means that "ground floor" is a synonym for zero). A year zero makes perfect sense on the calendar of history, since it's measured from someone's birth. A child doesn't go straight from his birth to being 1 year old. There is a zero year - measured not formally as zero, of course, but in months - first. If we measure this way, then the first millenium was from the year 0 to the year 1999, and the second millenium starts in 2000, which has a pleasing symmetry, both because the number has all those zeroes on the end and because it starts with a new digit. A fresh start. What I need is a sense of irony. I get too damn passionate about things. Loretta called this morning. Looks like I'll be down at KZC this weekend after all. They were just a bit slow getting back to me. I didn't want to do the entire 5 days, both because I've taken such an unusual amount of time off this year (I generally hoard it) and want to save it for the trip to Scotland this summer; and because, I don't know, I'm just reluctant. Five days of sitting after not having been to a retreat for five months; I'm not prepared. So I start at 5:15 (a.m.) on Friday. Oops. That means I'll have to get the workouts done during the week, since the weekend is reserved now. Went to see A Hard Day's Night yesterday, at the Fine Arts in Mission. There were two young girls in the row behind me, giggling, reminiscent of young girls' reactions when the Beatles first arrived. My son listens to them, too, and they have a CD that's popular, a collection of their big hits. They're popular again. The movie was better the first time around, though still fun. That was one thing those guys knew how to do - have fun. That, and their melodies, were probably the reason for their success. But God the clothes were bad. What were people thinking? It's been a movie weekend. I will buy anything related to Fantasia, which for a long time has been a steady favorite of mine, so I asked for the DVD for Christmas, even though we don't have a DVD player. We all have our weaknesses, and Fantasia is one of mine. I went over to Cindy and David's to watch it. Very pleasant, since they watched with me. I love their conversation. My sister and her husband are so damned intelligent, and usually have something interesting to say. I learn things when I hang out with them. The only flaw was the movie itself. The narrator's lips didn't quite match his words through much of the movie, and the colors were muddier than I remember from the taped version, or the theater version. I remain lukewarm to much of the movie - the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and much of the rest. But parts of it, especially Night on Bald Mountain, are perfectly realized. The section with the elephants, flamingoes, hippos and crocodiles remains fresh and hilarious. They did a magnificent job on that movie. It remains sui generis. The flying horses. The dance of the mushrooms. Lots of things. I never tire of that movie. This evening we went to the Rio to see Crouching Tiger. Ang Lee seems to be getting better, and considering how good he already was, that's no small thing. Only the dialogue was weak - hokey in a cliched Chinese way. But the characters, the action, the plot, the fight sequences, even the cinematography were all magnificent. Michelle Yeoh can show more in two seconds with her eyes than any Hollywood actress I can think of. Chow Yun-Fat was credible (the first time I've seen him do more than sleepwalk through a film). And when I saw Zhang Ziyi's belly in the scene where she wrestles with her bandit lover, I nearly burst a vessel in my brain. The sexiest thing I've seen in months. Don't tell me that Orientals are inscrutable; that movie was full of genuine emotion. At the end, the audience applauded. I haven't heard an audience do that in a long time. Finished Adam Gopnik's book "From Paris to the Moon", which Susan gave me for Christmas. A charming book. If it has a flaw, it's that in places it's too formulaic, too theoretical in the French manner! But this was a weakness mostly in a middle section. In general, the writing, and the sharp observation, are delightful. Charming, even. If I didn't already know Paris, I'd want to run off and live there myself. But of course I have been to Paris, at least twice (it's hard to remember all the trips to Europe, when you get as old as I am), and I don't care for the place. It's always seemed cold and sterile and unfriendly to me. The bureaucracy of the French alone would make my head explode. Not to mention that one of the problems with France is that half the people living there are men, and Frenchmen are generally insufferable, although Frenchwomen tend to be charming, at least in a social context. What struck me most strongly about the book is the affection the French show for things - for food, for their buildings and streets. How they preserve their traditions. At bottom, this may be evidence of insecurity, but I won't criticize this. They have a much more problematic history than we here do, and if they cling to their surroundings with affection, I sympathize. Human beings in general need this anyway. The world is a cold and very difficult and dangerous place, and our race has to build structures in which to live. The physical structures of buildings, of roads, and so on is only the half of it. The social structures of family, school, friends, church, even the bureaucratic structures of government, are all necessary. We use these to protect ourselves. As little as I care for the French, and for France, and for Paris in particular, this book reminds me that there is much we can learn from them: the value of tradition, the importance of things (that is, of the concrete and tangible world in which we live) and the respect we should show these things and the care we should give them, and the importance of human relations and the care we should take of each other. I think that in this country of ours, we are too much in love with abstractions and with goals and with competition. Too many of us are left behind, or their self-respect is demolished, because they can't compete, especially can't compete in the arena of the business world. There should be less emphasis on competitive success (especially as measured by money), and more emphasis on the little life, the daily round. What matters in the end, when your name and form are gone and you are forgotten, is what you did, how you behaved, and the experiences you had. Spending time at the office in the attempt to get ahead is a fool's game - and yet, this is exactly what we do, and the problem is getting worse. Look at the people who start dot coms. They like to think of themselves as different because they have rejected conventional dress and hours and customs. At bottom, though, they are worse than the business culture they are replacing, because they are more extreme, they're even more monomaniacal. I grew up in a family where the father was rarely home because he worked nearly every moment he wasn't asleep. His work ethic was extraordinary, and though I admire it, we all paid a price for it. He built a business and managed to put us all through private schools, but I don't think it was worth it. I was never close to him, and now he's dead, and we never can be close (which is not to blame him; much of it was my fault, not his). The pursuit of success is destructive. What matters are people and things. What matters is the immediacy of this world. Success is nothing, and money is only a tool. Experience and behavior are what count. Home E-mail Journal index |