The Midtown Messenger

Fake News Dept.: Local view on Obama poetry slam (or jam. whatever)

2009-05-31T01:30:00.005-06:00

Slam-dunk: Ms Sinema Goes to Washington

Sinema: Hot! Jones: Hoth Angelou: Poet Penn: Pothead?

State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema was invited to a first-ever Poetry Slam held at the White House on Tuesday, May 12. “I was thinking of sending my regrets, as that was the date of the special Phoenix Historic Preservation Commission hearing on the Biltmore PUD rezoning,” said Sinema, a Willo Historic District resident. “But then I thought, rezoning hearing, White House, rezoning hearing, White House, and I guess I just tipped in favor of the honor of an invitation to the official residence of the historic new leader of the free world and his glamorous but down-to-earth family.”
Even when the decision hung in the balance, Sinema said she didn’t consider flipping a coin, “Because they all still only have old, dead white men on them. Well, as I don’t have any Susan B. Anthony or Sacagawea coins lying around, that is. Sue me.”
Featured attendee James Earl Jones’ poem was released in advance:
Barack, I am your father!
Come over to the dark side.
Forget those Kansas crackers;
We are your staunchest backers!
(stentorian intake, outrush of breath)
Many consider Poetry Slams the original, white “rap,” but a visit to the official poetry slam website reveals that isn’t so. While rap indeed had its origins as a kind of competitive, rhyming exchange, slam poetry is, like other expressions of an actual literary oeuvre or tradition, pre-written rather than extemporaneous. According to the website’s FAQs, what the difference is between poetry and slam poetry is “not the right question to ask.” [huh? An actual, “frequently asked question” is a wrong question?] The site adds, “There is no such thing as ‘slam poetry.’” [huh? ]
The site goes on to explain that slam poetry is poetry that is expressly written to be “heard” (as opposed to seen and not heard, perhaps) and that in competition, slam focuses on both the poem and the delivery, adding that “Winning a poetry slam requires some measure of skill and a huge dose of luck.”
Sinema, singing out that, loving people*, she is “One of the luckiest people in the world,” characterized the skill part this way: “For example, if you were not just a Beat poet, but a slam poet performing the Beat poem “Howl,” you would probably recite it while also doing an impression of Jack Nicholson in the Mike Nichols film “Wolf,” running around chewing up the scenery—literally—peeing on Rahm Emanuel’s shoes and having it on with a lifelike effigy of Michelle Pfeiffer.”
Sinema said she was really looking forward to meeting universal women’s and girls’ role model Michelle Obama, who at 5 feet 11 inches tall “is still not really Willo-wy,” the Willo resident quipped, in an apparent oblique—and rare—catty reference to the tall, stylish and shapely First Lady’s nonetheless “womanly” booty.
In further comments made in an interview before the event, Sinema said she was working on her poem, though she wasn’t sure she was being invited to actually deliver one, and, even if so, had her doubts whether doing so would show proper decorum. “I may have it ready, but decline to recite it myself and instead have it performed by Maya Angelou, like when Sarah Palin was on ‘Saturday Night Live’ last fall but Amy Poehler did her rap for her.
“That may give me a little more breathing room to chat up that cute Kal Penn,” the Indian-American actor who was recently appointed associate director at the Office of Public Liaison, as the point person for the arts and Asian-American communities in the White House, the pretty-hot-herself Sinema said. “Speaking of lifelike, he looks extremely vivacious—despite his having recently been killed off on the hit medical show ‘House,’” she added, forgetting (or maybe not???) that “vivacious” is almost exclusively used as a demeaning “compliment” to, or characterization of, a woman. (Like saying a black person is “articulate.” Or “clean.” We’re talking to you, Biden!) Sinema added she might be willing to nudge her openly professed bisexuality (*all people) lightly and briefly into a closet in some White House hallway in favor of a some meaningful “face time” with the dreamy Penn.
That is, “Unless I intuitively discern he’s open to a little three-way with Maya,” Sinema—who along with not being sexist, racist, ethnocentric, egocentric or concentro-centric, is also decisively catholic (*all people) in her personal, “romantic” tastes, and is certainly not ageist—said.
Penn also recently co-starred in the hit sequel “Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay,” leading to speculation he is aiding in administration plans for closing down that facility by placing other, not-the-worst-of-the-worst detainees in largely symbolic White House positions like his own.
Meanwhile, “I wish I coulda got to go to the White House instead of, or even with, Kyrsten,” said Arizona House of Representatives Democratic Whip “Hanging Chad” Campbell. “But I’m already pretty ‘slammed’ here at the Legislature, anyway, what with the state budget crisis. Ha ha.”
—David Tell

Branding the city: ‘I Heart Phoenix’

2009-03-17T23:59:00.004-06:00

'Copper Square's' not good enough?

As in an old fairy tale, maybe Arizona's urban "heart" is made of flint — easily cracked if too much feeling wells up

Perhaps to try to make up for one of its editors recently disputing the validity of the designation “Midtown,” the Arizona Republic a couple of weeks ago had one of its reporters cover efforts to brand—or re-brand—downtown Phoenix. Apparently “Copper Square,” the branding for 90 blocks of shops, hotels restaurants and sports and entertainment venues in the city’s core, has lost its luster, so Downtown Phoenix Partnership, always busily trying to justify the special assessment monies it receives from those constituents, has been working recently on a new campaign.
Reporter Jahna Berry, in the March 2 cover story, also noted that Phoenix is not a pioneer in this kind of effort. She pointed out that Las Vegas, Austin and Omaha—home of iconic tourist draws Warren Buffett, Mutual of Omaha and the fictional “Schmidt” of Alexander Payne’s film “About Schmidt” (predecessor to “Sideways,” his homage to the lesser winemaking areas of California) have also embarked on similar branding efforts. Berry cited these facts as evidence of success in that kind of effort: A 5 percent increase in visitors to Vegas over eight years, or 0.625 percent per year (which, to be generous, was about the same as the rate of population growth in developed countries during this period of an especially weak U.S. dollar—a boon to foreign tourists); a purely anecdotal testament to Austin’s unique live music culture, which may be found there “in some unlikely places”; and the city of Omaha’s own embrace of its new slogan, “O! so surprising.” (What may not be so surprising is that would-be tourists hearing of the slogan assume it refers to O!klahoma, and later need rescuing from mazes in fields of corn as high as an elephant’s eye, where they get lost seeking that state’s urban heart, memorialized in Neil Young’s ballad “The Last Trip to Tulsa.”)
Officials at DPP and representatives of other stakeholders were encouraged in their efforts to rebrand central Phoenix with the phrase, “Arizona’s Urban Heart,” based on surveys they did of East Asian tourists planning the itinerary of their U.S. visit. Leon Wong of Hong Kong, once a champion at ping pong before his early retirement following his college days, was already bringing his family to America for two-week vacation this spring. When he heard of the opportunity to include Arizona’s “urban heart” in the tour, he was quite excited. “But Daddy,” said his youngest daughter Peony, “I thought the Grand Canyon was the place to see in Arizona!” “Ah, but I see here in central Phoenix, they have the Grand Canal,” Leon assured her. “Plus, there’s a brand new city hotel, where we might get to meet other fascinating out-of-towners, like conventioneers!” he enthused.
“But what about the Painted Desert?” protested Leon Jr. “Well, according to an item I saw on a blog about Phoenix—I mean, ‘Arizona’s Urban Heart’—that I found, the Drop In Center (made possible with the collaboration of Native Health and Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, and which provides youth ages 14 to 24 the opportunity to find jobs, get information and resources, meet with a life-coach, get involved in their community, and empower themselves to be better individuals in a safe environment) got a Fresh Coat of Paint recently,” said Leon, tentatively.
In addition to providing a low-key alternative to the crowds one has to elbow one’s way through for a glimpse at Arizona’s scenic wonders, taking in Arizona’s Urban Heart affords demographers and city planners, not mention regular urban appreciators of all sorts from around the world a thorough opportunity to take in a large and unspectacular urban area in a very specific—and special—stalled state of development, said Jim Flynn, DPP’s director of marketing. “You could visit many other cities—Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, Washington, Charleston, St. Louis, Nashville, Dallas, San Diego ... even Omaha—for a sampling of a more mature, culturally vibrant American city. But only here in Phoenix can you find quite this precise mix of endless, near-identical strip malls, sporadic high-rise developments punctuating big-box retail and dining attractions, and dusty undeveloped lots in prime areas--all with a most amazing lack of shade and other pedestrian amenities conducive to the comfort of tourists, who would usually explore these phenomena close up, on foot.”
Plus, Flynn said, the city has perhaps the best preserved, most extensive—and youngest—officially designated historic residential neighborhoods, with dozens of styles ranging from Southwestern to Bungalow. “Isn’t saying the city has the youngest historic neighborhoods a little like saying someone is the world’s tallest dwarf?” asked Comedy Central’s vertically challenged Jon Stewart, upon hearing of the new pitch for Phoenix. “Well, I’m from Austin, and, as far as historic goes, well ... here I am,” said city Historic Preservation Officer Barbara Stocklin. “For now.”
Speaking of heart, “Arizona’s Urban Heart” takes on an entirely new meaning when you consider that between City Hall, the Legislature and even the state’s Congressional delegation, the city may have among the highest proportion of gay, lesbian and bisexual politicians anywhere! San Francisco’s Castro District, eat your urban heart out! (Even if you do have Rice-a-Roni, as part of your branding, keeping tourists coming back for seconds.—Wait—San Francisco’s part of Rice-a-Roni’s branding. Never mind.)
—David Tell

‘Stated income’ loans: Just a way to house homeless!

2009-03-17T23:37:00.006-06:00

Subprime: When even the homeless could get a home loan!

Guess who’s coming to dinner! and for aperitifs!

A couple of alert readers noticed that three upscale Midtown restaurants were listed in Wine Spectator magazine’s annual dining guide last August. Durant’s even got recognition for its “inexpensive wine pricing,” while it, The Compass and Cheuvront Wine & Cheese all received the list’s one-wine-glass “Award of Excellence” rating (the lowest rating in the list: two glasses indicates the “Best of Award of Excellence” and three signifies the “Grand Award”).
After noting the “inexpensive” designation, Snatch and Scriff, Midtown’s most carefree and cultivated homeless couple, headed over to Durant’s, where they’ve regularly been enjoying their own special Happy Hour ever since. “They don’t have Thunderbird or Mad Dog, but we make do,” said Snatch. “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!” yelled Scriff, then noticing Snatch furiously scratching an instant lottery ticket to the usual disappointing outcome. “Hey, clean that gunk out of yer fingernails,” admonished Scriff. “You know we got to keep up appearances to sit at that nice bar we go to now.” “Yeah, well, you got potatoes growing out yer ears, so mind yer own bizness,” replied the lady. “Yeah, well, my hair covers ’em up, but yer fingernails show through where you wear those mittens with no fingers!” Scriff said.
“Yeah, anyway, we can usually make enough panhandling at the Arco over at 7th and Thomas to drink at Durant’s a whole evening,” he went on. “Although, they close too damn early; this whole town shuts down at like, 8! We started to check out that Cheuvront place, but we woulda had to roll a few junkies on top of our other earnings to drink there reglar. Plus, it looked like the Sheriff’s guys had stopped in there while transporting inmates on the light rail, so then we kinda didn’t feel that welcome. Plus, I did take a sip of some red wine and burned my tongue. Dude needs to keep it at cellar tempature, you know you can’t serve that good stuff at this city’s ambent heat!”
“So yeah, we headed up round the corner a bit to have some grub over at that My Florist eatery,” chimed in Snatch. “Did you know, it’s vertically integrated with that bread place next door?”
“How can it be vertical if it’s next door, my haggy honey?” interjected Scriff. “But yeah, everything on the menu is carbs, so we’re not going back. Snatch has to watch her figure; her boobs are already down to her ubiquitous. You know, her nagel.”
“It’s my bellybuppin, you boob, and you need a mansiere your own self,” Snatch retorted. “But yeah, that menu: bread this, bread that. They had a bread samwich--bread with bread in the middle I mean! They had a crouton omelet, bread pudding, pumpernickel soup. They had bread dip served in a bread bowl with toast points, French toast stuffed with bread crumbs.”
“Yeah, they had a lot of bread stuff,” Scriff agreed. “So, we also decided to check out that Compass place at the top of the Hyatt, but you know, it turns, and Snatch lost her cookies, so we hadda leave.”
“Bread cookies,” mumbled Snatch. “So, they was mostly able to sweep it up, chunks.”
“So, yeah, I’m kinda proud to be homeless where we got those three fine bars; that list was of dozens of places all around the state,” Scriff said, adding wistfully, “Maybe someday we can get a car and check ’em all out. I wanna get one of them Chevy Volts, when they come out—well, they were supposed to come out this year, now it’s next. So maybe when they really do, we’ll be able to get one.”
“Yeah, my stinky sweetie, when my AIG stock ever gets out of the dumper, we can,” Snatch soothed him. “But we can’t get a Volt, we got no place to plug it in! Ahh, too bad your investment guy’s feeder fund was invested with that Madoff a-hole.”
“Yeah, that sucked,” agreed Scriff dolefully. Then he perked up as they rounded the corner at 3rd Street and Monte Vista and noticed their former home, in the posh Los Olivos Historic District. “New owners seem to be takin pretty good care of it,” he said. “Course they are! Banks don’t let that stuff, nice property, go downhill, you know,” Snatch agreed, shielding her head from a rare sprinkle of rain with her tattered copy of Town and Country.
—David Tell

Reviews pre-'09 Oscars--read 'em and weep

2009-02-18T19:49:00.010-07:00

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a good book & thou
“The Reader” isn’t about the Holocaust, about Auschwitz, about German collective guilt or the guilt of complicit or evil individuals, even though it features a World War II war crimes trial. It is not about a love story, though there is a beautiful, sexy love story depicted in it.
It is about the transformative power of art, in particular, in this case, literature. And literature, a teacher at one point in the film says, is centrally about the control of information—the protecting, the withholding, the selective disclosing of information (whether by characters in the story or by its narrator). If we accept this thesis, literature is crucially about secrets, and “The Reader” is largely, primarily about the harm keeping secrets can do. When Michael (Ralph Fiennes) decides, after all, not to visit Hannah (Kate Winslet) during the trial he is observing as part of his training as a young law student, to press her to disclose to the court the information that would partially exculpate her from the worst, false accusation against her—which could lessen her sentence—it is hard to figure. But it makes sense if we understand, as above, what the film is about, and see that he has decided to let her harm herself with her pridefully protected secret just as she so deeply hurt him by her refusal to admit the same secret to him. That’s why he later doesn’t write to her along with sending the tapes. Why, when he asks whether she thinks about the past, he doesn’t mean their past, but her own guilty history. Why he is not more tender in that visit. In sending her the tapes, he thus clearly is not re-enacting a lover’s tender mercies. He is offering her an avenue to her own richer partaking in the kind of exploration of human moral experience, questioning of choices and, ultimately, self-examination that literature presents opportunity for. And, one surmises, it works—additionally prompted by the emotional distance evinced and moral query posed during his final visit to her—with the sad but perhaps just twist represented by her subsequent, final choice. He later unburdens himself to his daughter, as, earlier, the lifelong emotional distance he has held himself in in the protection of his own deep secret has been revealed to have harmed her (among others, we must assume), and his relationships with her and them.

‘Stepford Wives’—the prequel
“Revolutionary Road” is the other Kate Winslet vehicle of the season, based on an acclaimed novel by Richard Yates—whom I heard interviewed, drunkenly aggrandizing himself in an unearthed tape played on an NPR show. This one is clearly about something more focused than in all the broad hype: the hopeless, stultifying life that being a suburban housewife was in the ’50s and ’60s. Whether Winslet’s “April” had little talent as an actress or it was just wasted where it was exercised—pearls before and among swine—isn’t clear. (Though hubbie Frank, played by ol’ Leonardo DiCaprio, sure did go on about it in an annoying case of verbal diarrhea.) But, damn, I’d sure love the little woman to clasp me around the knees, and urge me to forsake gainful employment to “find myself” in Paris, where she’d support me—because I am just that wonderful thing: a man! But Frank only reluctantly buys in, and especially after he takes a mistress and is offered a promotion at the office, it’s clearer than ever that Paris is for April—it’s her only hope for an alternative to decades of Stepfordian drudgery. Michael Shannon provides great, dark comic relief, as the son of a neighbor on furlough from electroconvulsive therapy (shock treatments) at a mental hospital. Nominated for a best supporting actor award, clearly he’s intended as one of the few voices of sanity in conformo-land.

Exploring the female psyche. Watch out for the Minotaur
Is the idea in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" supposed to be that human love and sexuality burst the bounds, overflow the banks, transcend the categories we try to set? That planning and aiming at what we want, or, alternatively, staying open to impulse and passion are both (and neither) the preferred approach? Or is it that women, even if they knew what they wanted, couldn't have it, being perennially dissatisfied and frivolous and labile—volatile and fickle? (As men are, but at least we hardly agonize over it anywhere near as much, and the film explores the women's interiority much more than the men's. Speaking of which, is this narrated in voice-over by the same guy as in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"? I'll have to check.) This is the best film of Woody Allen's since "Match Point," which itself was a high point in a major, decades-long dry period. At least Scarlett Johansson's put to much better use here than in "Scoop." But this film goes back to the heyday of "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters," as a much more complex and nuanced look at relationships than much in between. Consider it a "Hannah and Her Sisters" meets "How to Make an American Quilt" (the latter being a film a former girlfriend urged me to watch, but said I wouldn't "get." Dumb cunt. Of course I got it; as here, or more than here, it's about how women are in fact thoroughly programmed, largely by their own mothers, to be unable to have, or enjoy, or keep, what they want—or think they want.) And, man, that Penelope Cruz, what a crazy, psycho bitch! But it's not so expressive a portrayal of a role resonating with or transcending my intimate, personal experience of crazy, psycho bitches such as to, for that reason, deserve an Oscar.

Life is like box of buttons
The odd premise is well-realized, technically, and "The Strange Case of Benjamin Button's" acting and production values are fairly flawless. But in its loosely episodic narrative with its patina of well-polished, folky wisdom, it reminded both of us independently of “Forrest Gump”—and that was before we found out it was written by the same guy. Tell you what: You want to watch Brad Pitt age backwards? Go rent “Thelma and Louise” and “Kalifornia.” Otherwise, watching Kate Winslet in “The Reader” aging in the forward direction—though largely without accumulating much wisdom in the process—is much more satisfying.

Gaza, shmaza. Even when they're the oppressed, don't mess with most Jews
As I’ve said in these pages before, notwithstanding the unique straits of those who were rounded up in the Holocaust, we Jews have no particular innate streak of meek subservience, as this film amply proves. Even in the scene in "Defiance" where the weakened crowd subsisting in the forest to hide from the Nazis and their henchmen kick and beat the stray German soldier to death, I realized it was right and proper, even though your first impulse is to think Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig), their leader, is going to step in and stop it. But he doesn’t, recognizing that their murderous, mob rage is a just revenge for the ruthless brutalization of their loved ones at the Germans’ hands. I must say, I disagreed with Roger Ebert’s view that Craig’s character is flat while his brother’s, played by Liev Schreiber, is nuanced and evolutionary—he has it exactly backwards. It is Craig who gets to play the role where the requirements of leadership impose the toughest choices—choices he often wrestles with and resists, growing more resolute and decisive only when forced to; sometimes not soon enough. Directed by Ed Zwick of “The Last Samurai,” “30something” and “My So-Called Life.”

And don't mess with Clint Eastwood, even when he gets troublesome moral qualms
Indeed a great performance by Eastwood in "Gran Torino," with a lot of nice, politically incorrect touches. And he takes his archetypal characters’ vengeance theme in a new direction, which I won’t spoil further except to say, note the final pose, akin to Pete Postlethwaite’s at a clicheed but “crucially” symbolic point in Jim Sheridan’s great “In the Name of the Father,” which also starred Emma Thompson and Daniel Day-Lewis earlier in their brilliant careers. (A film notably, newly relevant in this our era of contending with terrorism "vs." our precious civil rights and liberties.)

Rourke's always been a surprisingly low-key, affable fella
With realistic-verging-on-real wrestling scenes that are difficult to watch, and scenes of wrenching and tender emotional interactions from which you can’t look away, this latest Darren Aronofsky film is a worthy contender for best film. As transfixing Mickey Rourke is to watch in his more emotive moments, what also charms in this film is his character’s easy, gentle friendliness, his natural charm and likability. He has a casual way with kids that you also see in the scene, re-watching the classic thriller “Angel Heart,” where he first approaches Epiphany Proudfoot. (And in "The Pope of Greenwich Village," where the perennial "kid" refusing to take responsibility is the estimable Eric Roberts.) The scenes where he is waiting on customers in the deli are priceless, but his exit from that gig is tragic, as is the film. (I thought I’d cry more at the theme of the estrangement from an adult daughter, but if you’ve read the review in our December issue of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, N.Y.” (which we were sorry to see did not even get a nod for best original screenplay or production design), you may realize we’ve already had our catharsis on that topic for the indefinite time being.) Noting that we heartily complimented Marisa Tomei’s protracted frontal nudity in “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” last year, there’s more here, but even more in “Angel Heart,” which was kind of out there even for its time (featuring the boobs of Charlotte Rampling, Lisa Bonet and some other fetching babe). What’s also interesting is that this film was co-written by William Hjortsberg, we noticed upon re-screening it recently, based on his novel. He also wrote an interesting sci-fi tale published in an early Playboy formative of me in horny adolescence, about a future where we're all brains in vats being groomed for enlightenment and to then be deserving of a body to go live in paradise anew. But the first brain successfully kept alive, of a horny 12-year-old, finds his intellect aging backward as it consumes--depletes--his limited store of experiences while he is having hot virtual sex in an affair with an aging East European B-movie star. (Kind of like the "Ouroboros" theme in Kaufman's film "Adaptation," where the question is whether the screenwriter will ultimately overcannibalize his own life using self-referential material, and which may have gotten more awards than our predicted one for Chris Cooper for Best Supporting Actor.) Title of the Hjortsberg story: "Gray Matters." Kind of relevant to "Benjamin Button" ... "Benjamin Button" meets "Lawnmower Man" meets "The Matrix." Back to “The Wrestler,” it has an ending that disturbed Marci in a way similar to how the sudden blackout at the end of “No Country for Old Men” did. She wanted it to end up with Rourke’s character in the hospital bed again with Marisa Tomei there holding his hand, about to face their new life together taking care of his poor heart. But as I explained to her, he returned to the life he knew and probably fatal heart attack because, among other things, his heart had already been broken. "Trite," but true. (The daughter thing notwithstanding.)

(Not up for an Oscar this year. Or any year:)

It’s a mad mad mad mad mad mad dating world
I realized, watching "He's Just Not That Into You," the formula of its title isn’t quite right, requires some refinement. With so many new avenues for meeting potential romantic partners—and so many ways of juggling multiple prospects, for cheating, evading, dissing, blowing people off, putting them off, holding them off, keeping them in suspense, yet keeping them available—thinking they’re in the running, or are The One—it’s clearly more complicated than “Does he like me or not? Is he going to call or not? Is she into me or not?.” The real formula isn’t “He’s just not that into you”—it’s “He’s just not that into just you”! I should know. I’ve got a book in the works on my life dating, preying, dumping, loving and losing using the personals; in fact, I tried to interest Greg Behrendt’s literary agency in it, it being in somewhat the same vein as his original book the film is loosely derived from. That said, and as much as I’ve seen a fleeting write-off of the film as superficial, it’s not that bad. Ginnifer Goodwin, the ingenuous third wife in HBO’s polygamist “Big Love,” brings a similar energetic optimism to “Not Into You,” though it veers over into obsessive, self-deluded microscrutiny of every “signal” sent by potential partners, suitors, dates. A lot of the film is somewhat lightweight genre stuff, but it also offers characters who are in genuine non-farcical pain, such as Jennifers Connelly and Aniston. The film is admittedly full of false notes, with the monologue by Drew Barrymore about the number of tech channels through which you can hook up or be blown off being exactly as “exhausting” to hear in the film as it was when incessantly repeated in commercials and trailers. Justin Long as Alex is only believable in his jaded, insensitive, cynical-realist mode, as the vehicle for the disappointing clarity of insight Behrendt’s book purports to offer, and not in his transformation into the romantic lead. He wasn’t too likable in either mode, as much as I identified with him in the first one. (And Marci identified with Goodwin’s Gigi; and Long and Goodwin made improbable partners, just as—at least in others’ eyes—M and I do.) The set of dalliances in which Scarlett Johansson is the link displays some reprehensible activities, but worst of all ... what was up with Kevin Connolly’s hair? In one scene in particular, it looked like he had just been dipped upside-down in Grecian Formula and blow-dried on high. I kept expecting him to realize he was gay. You know, I guess this film was pretty bad, after all; it’s certainly not more than the sum of its often flimsy parts. Especially in that, at the end, it upholds the contra-premise: that it’s better in the end to be able to yearn, gaga- (Gigi-)like, eternally, hopefully, desperately wishing there is something there that may not be—and probably isn’t.

—David Tell

Fake News, the Politics of Punctuation Dept.

2008-11-21T13:59:00.005-07:00

Ignored by Arizona’s main daily paper, it’s still a Capital idea

With the election over and Barack Obama’s pending advent to the presidency of the United States, Phoenix residents have begun to wonder whether their hometown rag, the Arizona Republic, will re-evaluate its capitalization policy for the terms for America’s two most recognizable races in low-light conditions, the whites and the blacks.
As an example, passages appearing in a pre-election article in the Republic read: “There’s utter amazement at the prospect of Barack Obama becoming president, the son of an African father and a White mother from Kansas who seems divinely favored with temperament, talent and timing. ... There is also apprehension over reports that Blacks are being unjustly stricken from voter registration rolls nationwide—an unsavory reminder that outcomes can be manipulated. ...”
Given that the article in which these sentences appeared came off the wire and were written by a Washington Post columnist, and thus must have followed Normal Capitalization Style, the Republic clearly would have had to employ all the resources at its disposal to actively and concertedly capitalize the words “black” and “white,” in order to bring them into compliance with the local paper’s unique, if not singular, style practices.
The paper’s archivist, fact checker and humor columnist, Clay Thompson, offered some history of the Republic’s style preference in this area. “Going back to a much earlier era, the paper didn’t originally capitalize ‘Black,’ because it didn’t think black people were to be accorded the dignity and distinction of capitalization. And we didn’t often have opportunity to capitalize ‘white’ in the olden days, because we seldom reported on the doings of whites as whites. The black residents of the city, few as they were, also preferred to go about their business unnoticed, so it’s a little hard to find examples of the old cap-W, little-b usage.”
It was difficult, interviewing Thompson over the phone, to miss his trying to adhere to the Republic’s current capitalization style in his mere pronunciation of “white” and “black.”
The paper’s longtime publisher, Sue Clark-Johnson, defended the style policy in a written statement before her elevation to more rarefied executive levels within Republic parent Gannett in 2005: “Of course, the reason for the policy is accuracy, plain and simple,” she wrote. “‘Whites’ aren’t truly white—they’re kind of a pale pinkish. A Shader Pale of Pink, so to speak. And ‘Blacks’ certainly aren’t black, thank Goodness! I’m so happy that they are usually some shade—often a very nice hue, in my opinion—of brown. If they were black, in fact, that would tend to validate racism, as black is universally and incontrovertibly known to be a yucky and evil color, while white is pure and holy. So, we insist on upholding the Equality of the Races in this way.”
Johnson added she saw the style standard as a sign of respect for the races, “analogously to the few newspapers around the country that still accord people identified or quoted in their stories the titles ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ on subsequent reference—not just by their last names.”
The Wall Street Journal still dignifies its subjects and sources with such titles; however, the Republic appears to stand proudly alone, or almost alone, in its capitalization of racial designations.
Johnson and her successors have had the sad duty over the past few years of slashing the paper’s staff while also overseeing a controversial redesign and reformatting of the publication into “Information Centers,” rather than news departments. However, the overhaul did not include a revisiting the racial-reference style question. But reports in other local publications on the controversial and demoralizing moves revealed that in the staff reductions, undertaken at the behest of Gannett, some high-profile departures at the time were voluntary, and coincidental. Former Willo neighborhood resident and Republic business columnist Jon Talton, a perennial scold who constantly urged the Valley to diversify its economy away from purely real-estate-related activities, actually left in protest over the capitalization policy. He tried to evade and undermine it, to no avail, Talton—known affectionately in the newsroom as “Cassandra”—said. “You know the caps-lock feature on computers? I tried fooling around with it to see if I could use it to automatically uncapitalize ‘B’ and ‘W’ when, in between my cushy three-times-a-week schedule as a columnist, I had to fill in on the copy desk. But the computers were apparently set up to just keep those letters capitalized, based on a ‘fuzzy-logic’ context-dependent determination by HAL-9000 up in the publisher’s office. It made it really annoying to edit copy where the article was in fact referring just to colors, not different racial groups, ‘fuzzy logic’ and ‘context’ notwithstanding. Open the pod bay door, please ... there’s no intelligent life here.”
Precocious Republic Executive Editor Nicole Carroll, who in the Gannett-ordered downsizing also has had to put in regular stints on the copy desk, made no apologies for the paper’s practice. In fact, “You’ll have to pry my blue pencil from my cold, dead hand before I personally stop marking up sloppy copy that fails to conform to our clear, consistent standard,” she said.
Longtime civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson agreed the capitalization policy is obtuse and offensive, but said Obama’s ascension to the presidency offered no particular occasion or rationale for revisiting it. “He’s not Black enough for that,” Jackson said, the cap-B markedly more evident in his own enunciation than it was in Thompson’s. “He didn’t grow up the descendant of slaves like us authentic black Americans. He’s an African-American of a special, suspect kind—literally, since his daddy was Kenyan. I think William Ayres visited Kenya. Anyway, I say, if it’s a nation, it gets capitalization. No ifs ands or buts. And I still want to cut off his nuts.”
Jackson ran for the presidency in 1984 and ’88, but apparently the time was not—or his own nuts weren’t—ripe for a black man to become president.
The Associated Press, which publishes a stylebook used by most U.S. newspapers to achieve a consistent printed usage in matters large and small, has for years attempted to get the Republic to change its style in this area, to little avail. “It’s as if the Arizona Republic, even as the state’s main daily and the voice now of the fifth-largest city in the country, lives in a distant time and place of its own,” said AP spokeswoman Mary Ogilvy. “Maybe someday it will come into the 20th century. We’re considering fines.” It being pointed out that it’s already the 21st century, Ogilvy said, “Yeah, I know. One step at a time. One step for a Man, one giant leap for the Republic ...”

Political Shtick
As a side comment on the election: A caller to an NPR talk show following Obama’s victory said it now felt like an America where truly anyone could become president. Still, with the failed runs at the top spot by Barry Goldwater, Mo Udall, Bruce Babbitt and now Sen. John McCain, it’s only in Arizona that mothers still can’t tell their sons they could grow up to be president someday. On the other hand, who knows about daughters of the Grand Canyon State? Arizonan Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to be seated on the U.S. Supreme Court. And, in Willo resident and state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who following her re-election Nov. 4 became assistant minority leader in the state House, we may have our very own answer to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Similarly bespectacled, with a not dissimilar mini-big-hairdo and a fair degree of comparable (if not superior) babe-itude, should we look for a Sinema leading a major party presidential ticket in, oh, say, 2020? She, at least, knows that Darfur is a region in the country of Sudan on the continent of Africa. She’s even been there.

-By David Tell

The VIP view--not as press; Marci's bank was a sponsor

2008-04-29T13:13:00.009-06:00

Some films most excellent, at ’08 Phx Film Fest

Tom McCarthy, also a ‘Wire’ actor, follows ‘Station Agent’ success with a new, top-notch offering

By David Tell, Messenger Editor

Here it is eight years later and the Phoenix Film Festival is a real Event. Has been for several years, actually, drawing credible, high-profile films, celebs, money people, stars and other players. And film buffs. (And glam chicks who regard the Event as the apotheosis of the Scottsdale clubs scene, with a chance to get discovered, too!) Robert Altman, rest in peace, would have a field day.
Much credit is due to Laurel and Hardy—uh, Lamont and Carney—the duo whose brainchild Phx Film Fest is. (We don’t apologize for the comparison: the pair ham it up quasi-comically in their appearances kicking off the event and the opening night film, etc.; not that there’s anything wrong with that—it could be more painfully pompous, as when dignitaries do de rigueur honors giving the event its official proclamations. This year it was Vice Mayor Peggy Neely, in whose district the festival takes place—virtually in Scottsdale, at the Harkins 101 Cine Capri, as we’ve noted ad infinitum. But what’re you gonna do? As much as we preferred the previous venue at AMC Theaters Arizona Center, the event has probably outgrown that space. Maybe not. We do know the downtown business community was irked at losing the event. So, they should have stopped the move. Shame on them.) Anyway. Reviews of festival film entries follow.

The Visitor
One pleasant surprise was the opening night film, by—who else?—another alum of HBO’s excellent, just concluded, urban Baltimore series, “The Wire.” (Readers of recent issues will know we rubbed elbows with a number of other players from that show, who were in town—downtown—for the screening at the Almost Famous Short Film Festival of an awesome movie they created, kind of ensemble: “Sympathetic Details,” by writer-director Benjamin Busch (Colicchio on “The Wire”). The opening PFF work was "The Visitor,” starring Richard Jenkins, late of HBO’s "Six Feet Under" (though we think of him fondly from his role in “The Witches of Eastwick”—in which he beats his wife to death with a fireplace poker—and from various installments in the Farrelly brothers’ oeuvre).
Tom McCarthy, writer-director of the phenom “The Station Agent” a couple years ago (set in Newfoundland, N.J., where yours truly hails from), played a disgruntled, overambitious reporter at the Baltimore Sun in the final season of “The Wire.” In that role, he not only gets caught up in cop Jimmy McNulty’s fabricated murders of homeless men (staged to get funding to resume investigations into other murders, put on ice due to city budget cuts), but, egged on by an out-of-touch mentor, goes on to completely make up spinoff “Dickensian” articles about the lives and travails of the homeless.
Needless to say, the guy’s likely got a lot more integrity than his “Wire” role, as his films display a humanity and sensitivity to the subtleties of character and situation that commends them highly, among other factors. We spoke briefly to McCarthy after his film’s screening, and told him it struck us almost as “Missing” meets “Year of the Dog.” “I was in ‘Year of the Dog,’” he replied. “Oh, yeah, you were the [Laura Dern’s] husband”—part of an overprotective, politically correct parental duo, and not the one who wears the pants—we acknowledged. We elaborated on our comparison, saying we found his and Mike White’s film to have had a similar affectionate, slight distance, yet a closely observant feel in regard to their characters, as well as a running, lightly humorous tone, even in the face of sobering realities. McCarthy acknowledged the point, while adding he still found the comparison strange. (That’s all right—we find his characters despicable ... though again, it’s probably a testament to his talent that they are so viscerally dislikable, as he’s probably nothing like them.)
More apt, perhaps, is the comparison to “Missing,” by Costa-Gavras. A political drama like his iconic “Z,” “Missing” is about events surrounding the 1973 coup in Chile that toppled popularly elected Marxist leader Salvador Allende, replacing him with the CIA-backed villain Augusto Pinochet. In the film, Jack Lemmon plays an American businessman called to Chile by his daughter-in-law (Sissy Spacek), when his son gets caught up in the political turmoil. Lemmon plays one of his classic “dawning awareness” roles, as in “The China Syndrome,” where he goes from a implicit faith in the system to a grudging realization that the institutions he believes in are not always so benign. Likewise, that evolution loosely describes Jenkins’ character’s progress in “The Visitor,” as he deals with problems related to the immigration status of some new friends. But, like Peggy the bereft secretary (Molly Shannon) in “Year of the Dog,” Jenkins’ character, Walter Vale, is also experiencing a loss of connectedness to places, people, work that have barely been his mooring for years—and so he finds new sources of life, passion and belonging. From its soundtrack to the cinematography; pacing, casting, acting and story, “The Visitor” is virtually flawless. (Except, however, as to a technical musical detail: When Tarek is starting to teach Walter drumming, he warns him African drumming is based on a “three-beat,” not four. What he really means is, there is syncopation and other “exotic” tendencies; however, the rhythm he and Walter then start working with is a “four-beat”—actually, more or less a half-time meter, in which there’s two beats to the measure and a quarter note gets one beat. Or something like that.)
Speaking of casting, Danai Gurira as Zainab, reminds us, perhaps oddly, of Samantha Morton. Maybe it’s the shape of her closely cropped head, like Morton’s as the lead empath in “Minority Report”; then again, maybe it’s something in her eyes. But Morton in Jim Sheridan’s fine “In America" plays a role more similar to Gurira’s here, as an illegal in New York City. Too, Haaz Sleiman as Tarek is perfect as one of those eager-to-please, happy-go-lucky, live-for-the moment kind of people, who endears himself to the viewer every bit as much as he does to Walter. But we were fondest of Jenkins as Walter, who is a little formal, doesn’t smile much, is sometimes tough on others yet self-excusing, and so has to endure others’ (especially the female characters’) guardedness, even hostility, well after he has really shown himself to be kind, gentle, caring, generous—in his low-key yet self-respecting way.

The Life Before Her Eyes
The closing night film was also wonderful. It was directed by Vadim Perelman, from an adapted screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Laura Kasischke. (Perelman directed the moving, tragic “House of Sand and Fog," released in 2003, which we raved about at the time.) “Before Her Eyes,” like last year’s Sandra Bullock vehicle “Premonition,” is what I call a women’s film—which is decidedly not the same thing as a check flick. It’s a serious look at issues women face, through a woman’s eyes, from women’s perspectives. That’s not to say men won’t like and be thoughtfully stimulated by it too. The film is visually poetic right from the credits, with images, close-ups of flowers melting away through lenswork or computer tricks or both. The film’s axis is a massacre at a high school by a disturbed young man—hardly an untopical event these days. It follows a couple of female, teen-age best friends up to and well beyond the bloody events of that day. Rachel Evan Wood plays “Diana,” one of the two girls—a restless, sexually active, smart, alienated, self-willed and somewhat confused young woman, whose friend Maureen presents a counterweight to those qualities.
Uma Thurman plays Wood’s character as a grown-up, an art history teacher with a husband, a child, and memories of the day that changed everything. We’ll avoid spoilers, since right up to the end of this film, the viewer has been led to look at the film one way, and it may not be the right way. That said, there’s a “Sophie’s Choice” element at its crux, though one less gratuitously in its framing and in its consequences than I’ve always considered that hinge of Styron’s book (and of the film made from it). However, against the decisive turning point represented by the massacre, the film examines what seem to be a number of uniquely female preoccupations and dilemmas: For instance, there’s the question of sex. Men are generally all impulse, expressing the conatus of Leibnizian philosophy; women are the gatekeepers of sex. Women, adolescent girls deal with the good girl-bad girl issue: They can say no, and are expected by parents, by society to do so; but how long can they and keep a man they may want? So they deal with guilt. They deal with the pressure, and then, often the rejection, even by the same source of the pressure—young boys who then taunt their conquests as “sluts.” The blood of their period is akin to, can lead to, the blood of an abortion: this is the blood of Christian-viewed sin, not of “the redemptive blood of the Lamb.” Men, for the most part, hold power of life and death over other living beings, the “born”—they send others to war, to their executions. Women hold that power over the unborn. Maybe it’s a fair division. But maybe few would like to have either power, if they could avoid it.
Women are taught, socialized to make a relationship, a marriage, a home. If those things fall apart, they are told, in myriad ways, to look first to themselves to blame. Even with a philandering husband. Even with a child who’s simply programmed to behave, act out, resist, rebel; among other reasons, as part of the eternal cycle of mother-daughter conflict. As Thurman’s Diana says, “I thought if I cared for my child, helped my students, loved my husband, everything would be all right.” But doing those things, the right thing, doesn’t necessarily control outcomes, bring ultimate happiness.
It’s interesting how as an art teacher, Diana’s lessons focus on Gauguin—like Philip Roth’s early, seminal novel Goodbye Columbus. I’ll leave the lessons of that reference, that inclusion for the viewer to explore themselves, as with the Blake poem Diana reads to her daughter to soothe her to sleep. Likewise the ubiquitous imagery of water in the film; while young Diana, looking at the spray from a fountain, wonders where the boundary is between its mist and the air it is dissipating into.
There are a few false notes, as in the somewhat hokey dialogue about “the heart being the strongest muscle in the body.” Some other witty exchanges reminded me of the improbably smart, ready-for-the Dorothy-Parker-book-of-quips utterances by Ellen Page’s precocious teen in last year’s phenomenon “Juno.” But they’re infrequent, and dissolve quickly in the potent, larger mix. The title and final plot twist are in fact a hoary cliché—and a clue ... though one most people, I feel, are unlikely to crack. (The repetition of an old Zombies song, in various forms, is also a clue.) At least, I didn’t—the whole weight, momentum of the film are so forceful on behalf of a different supposition.
A gorgeous, thoughtful, disturbing film, one that—like “Being There,” last year’s “Perfume,” “2001: A Space Odyssey”—one can hardly imagine being anywhere near as effective in a non-visual medium. Which is why we have film these days, and why, in these pages at least, you’ll find it analyzed as the serious literature it sometimes is.

Then She Found Me
A film to have overlooked at our peril given its all-star cast, this was generally a crowd-pleaser—a well-made romantic comedy and to some degree a chick flick, and a female mid-life crisis film “with heart”—which is not to say it was great. Watchable, touching, funny ... ultimately, not my cup of chai. (But nowhere near as bad as “The Holiday,” that Nancy Meyers abomination of a couple of years ago, though that film could have some of the same nice things said about it, and has a similar feel ...)
I hate to be cruel, but it’s also about the only way Helen Hunt, who may be missing the days she seemed genuinely youthful and desirable—say, ca. “Mad About You” days, or even playing the two-timin’ Bree in “Dr. T and the Women”—is going to get to play the romantic lead to someone like Colin Firth: write and direct it herself (actually, she co-wrote the script with two others, listed first on IMDb).
I mean, this woman was never especially my kind of babe, but—nothing personal, no fault of hers, it’s her genes, she’s just not aging well—she looks awful. Occasionally, she rises to “pleasant-looking.” She’s just haggard, sorry. I’m sure she’s a nice person.
Anyway, —No, I’ll say this, too: Bette Midler plays her mom, and the actresses’ actual ages may even work. You could say, OK HH got more of her father’s genes. But, you know, I’d do Bette WAY before I’d do Helen. OK, got that out of the way.
This is a Jewy film, and of course, I like that. It starts out with a Jewish joke, which is the theme: People will set you up to trust them, then they will pull the rug out from under you, uncovering a trapdoor to a circle of hell you should subliminally have girded yourself to expect, to deal with, after all—but it’s still no picnic.
But the Jewish mother is wise, the Jewish brother is wise, the b’racha over lighting the Shabbat candles is heartwarming. (Interestingly, I think—I’ll swear, I’ll bet—that’s Salman Rushdie playing the ob-gyn in the film. He’s not in the credits, I’m sure he insisted he be left out. What, he wants another fatwa, a death edict from those crazy militant Muslims now, again, for appearing in a Jewy film? Examining HH’s private parts, no less? What’s he even thinking?)
Colin Firth is unaccountably smitten with HH, but he gets taken on a ride over her biological clock issues, her on-the-rebound issues, and, to top it all off, her “my biological mother, who is a major wack job, suddenly appeared in my life” issues. To the writers’ and their character’s credit, ole Colin does not suppress his anger over his mistreatment by HH, though he also apologizes for same and then lets himself in for more of the same. But he’s not totally contemptible.
Helen Hunt’s character kind of is, as she succumbs to the occult charms of her childlike ex, played by Matthew Broderick, just when things are getting seriously rolling with Firth. Anyway, there’s some nice lessons here, in the end: As usual, a woman has to acquiesce in the idea that she doesn’t know as well what she wants and needs and what’s good for her, and for everyone—rather than her being overweeningly selfish—as she thinks she does.
One cool thing is that Bette Midler’s character—who plays a kind of local-to-the-New York-market, Jewish Oprah—at one point alleges HH is a product of her union with Steve McQueen, and refers to his having been involved in the film “The Sand Pebbles” at the time of their dalliance. “The Sand Pebbles” is a now-somewhat-obscure film that was Candice Bergen’s first shot at fame, and is based on the novel of the same name by talented author Richard McKenna, who died untimely and whose novella Fiddler’s Green is the basis for our screenplay, “The Thirst,” which we have been trying to get produced since 2000. If they keep bringing up stuff of his, maybe someday my awesome sci fi-adventure-occult “’The Matrix” meets “Apocalypto” meets “Interview With the Vampire” etc. etc. will get produced.

Remarkable Power
Starring Kevin Nealon and Tom Arnold, and a couple of unknown kids in prominent roles as well, this was a clever, edgy film where multiple plot lines and disparate agendas on the part of various characters are neatly tied up, turn out by the end of the film to have been enmeshed all along. Be that as it may, the film still has the kind of low-budget, cavalier, in-your-face feel of a project a bunch of formerly high-profile celebrities got together to make because they miss the spotlight and didn’t have anything else particularly worthwhile going on at the moment.
Kevin Nealon plays a TV talk show host who learns his wife is cheating on him and who is being canned after a long successful run, by the new guys at the network. Tom Arnold plays a PI documenting low-level sleaze who bumps into a young woman making a living by ambulance chasing and posting the morbid photos she takes on a pervert website (she’s one of the unknowns). The other unknown is a kid—a stoner—who gets sucked up by a Tony Robbins-type infomercial success scam, and ends up committing manslaughter. Etc., etc., blah blab blah. It all comes out in the wash. This is not, however, of the caliber of the Tom Arnold vehicle that premiered at the Phoenix Film Festival in 2005—Don Roos’ “Happy Endings” (one of the approximately 2.8 million films that year calculated to remind me of the dispiriting midlife misadventure I’d gone on in 2004). So, apropos of that circumstance, I raced back to the Q&A following the film when my dear wife Marci chided me for not getting Arnold’s autograph for her. The Q&A was still going on. A last question was solicited by the producer. “Me me me, call on me!” my flailing arm said, quite eloquently, but insistently, for an arm. I got called on. “Tom, a few years ago a young woman tricked me into getting her pregnant, like your character in ‘Happy Endings.’ Did you do anything like that to prepare for that part?” Tom said no, and embarked on a rambling soliloquy about how Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character in that film was after his money, but his character didn’t care, and so on ... The producer volunteered he hadn’t done anything like that either to prepare for ... I don’t know what! Then, as a sly follow up, the kind President Bush recently tried to rule out at his press conferences, I asked Tom, “Hey, Tom! Aren’t you kind of young to pairing yourself up in your films with every young cupcake of a wannabe actress you can find?” He misunderstood the thrust of the question and started to say, “You mean, ‘Too old ...’” because he didn’t let me finish: “No, I mean, like Woody Allen has been doing the past dozen or so years: Tea Leoni, Mira Sorvino, Scarlett Johansson, Debra Messing ... you’re too young to have to prop up your fragile male ego like that, don’t you think?” But I really didn’t get to hammer that point home, in its full articulation. By then, I was able to just go up to him and get him to sign his autograph on a copy of The Midtown Messenger, to the dear wife who’d been mistreated by my 2004 perambulation ... he was very kind. And, possibly, stoned. But a nice guy. I asked him if he was still Jewish (he converted upon his marriage to Roseanne; there was coverage of his unit having to be ritually nicked, since, as a good hygienic American male of my generation, he was already circumcised). “Always,” he said. “All right!” I commended him. And by the time I got out to the party tent to bestow his autograph upon Marci, he had already meandered out there and signed her festival program. Drat!

Roman de Gare
This looked interesting based on the title, which seemed to me a pun on “Roman de guerre,” which—it seems to me, who faked it all the way to French IV in high school—to mean something like, “story of war,” as roman a clef means mystery novel, etc. Anyway. What is it with these French films with middle-aged murderous novelistas? Like “Swimming Pool” a few years ago, with Charlotte Rampling and the delightfully saucy, naked Ludovine Sagnier (who also played the saucy, retro-garbed, tiny little luminous Tinker Bell in the great 2003 live-action “Peter Pan”). This was clever, and well made, if no masterpiece. But the interesting thing besides the labyrinthine plot was Dominique Pinon as the male romantic lead??? The nasty, cretinous guy who played the assassin in “Diva” 25 years ago??? I’m not kidding. Oh, the other cool thing was the likening of “the Writer” to God. I can relate.

Take
Another must-see, we realized, since it got made by the producers snagging Minnie Driver in a lead role. Great film; shot with lighting and/or film stock that conferred a washed-out, bluish graininess to reflect the drear, grim thrust of the story. Reminded me of the filmic feel of last year’s “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” reviewed in this space a few months ago; then we had to defend our dwelling on Marisa Tomei’s extended frontal nude scene in it in a later issue. “Take’s” gist was, crime victim (Driver) is on a road trip, on her way to witness the execution of the guy who caused her loss. That guy—what a loser. Much of the film follows his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Which gets worse and worse that way as a consequence of his bad choices, granted. Like in “Devil.” But. The narrative arc of convergence of convict on victim or victim on convict is paralleled by the story-within-the-story of the convergence of the two on the infamous day of the crime. We didn’t stay for the Q&A, but I wanted to ask the producer or director, did you see this as an anti-death penalty film? Because it seemed to me to say, “If the victim can forgive the transgressor, what business does society have insisting on its vengeance?” (As a hyper-rational guy, I recognize that’s an emotion-based argument, not a logical one. I have other, unassailable reasons for opposing the death penalty.) Anyway, an excellent film; maybe, along with “The Visitor,” the best of the fest. (Won “best ensemble film” at the Fest, which shows they don’t know what “ensemble” means. Even in English.) But, an awesome acting job by Jeremy Renner, as the down-and-out, reprehensible, hapless Saul. I’m just damn glad they didn’t name him that because he was going to have a “Paul on the road to Damascus come-to-Jesus conversion” as his execution drew closer. In fact, he put up a pretty good fight, argument, against the chaplain sent in to give him final rites, solace, theodicy, what-have-you. A fine film—almost caustic to watch, but full of integrity, intensity.

Uncross the Stars
Well, there had to be one film we couldn’t stand to sit though, like last year’s “Ten Inch Hero.” This, like the initial screening of that one (at which all the aging friends of the director’s Scottsdale parents, the McKays, dominated the audience demographic), was heavily attended by residents of a senior community where a lot of the film takes place, and was shot. There’s nothing that will kill your interest in a film quicker than all the old people laughing at the sexual double entendres by a “Golden girl” wannabe hungering for the buns of a hot young guy. Only about a quarter of the way into the film somebody playing with their fancy new wireless lapel mike or something had their “Let’s see how this works ... See how great it picks up?” etc. picked up by the theater’s sound system, obliterating the film’s soundtrack. Hooray! But they stopped it, were going to fix it and run it back to where it started getting messed up. For me, it was pretty messed up from the get-go. We’re outta here!

Almost Famous Film Fest hosts real celebrities

2008-04-08T15:28:00.007-06:00

Good things come in small packages

Local film fest to screen shorts; one by, featuring guys from HBO’s ‘The Wire’

By David Tell, Messenger editor

In reality, it’s graduated from the “Almost Famous” to the “Kinda Famous Film Festival.” It’s the event that in previous years took the form of a 48-hour short film challenge, in which local teams stepped up and conceived, wrote, filmed and burned to disk movies of less than 10 minutes’ duration—all in literally two days.
It’s been fun, and the hoopla has brought some profile and credibility to the festival and its founder and organizer, Jae Staats of the Willo neighborhood. But, despite the inspired move of bringing a writing professor and short film diva to Phoenix College in advance of the ’06 festival, to conduct a workshop and hopefully raise the average quality of the submissions, results remained somewhat uneven. The best films tended to be pretty good, and admittedly, the poorer-type efforts of the first year or two fell off and the bulk of the submissions hovered around “funny,” “interesting” and “watchable.” (Some, barely.)
This year, pros and semi-pros have made the films, and they’re pretty awesome—including an hour-long feature by Ben Busch and colleagues from HBO’s “The Wire.” View our comments on Busch's film on IMDb.com here, and all our comments on films on the site here. Following, read an interview with Busch by The Midtown Messenger:

The MM-A3F interview: ‘The Wire’s’ Ben Busch

Editor’s note: After several e-mails and some phone tag, we finally caught up with Benjamin Busch for a stimulating interview while he was at the laundromat folding clothes with his 3-year-old daughter. Busch lives in Reed City, Mich., near Big Rapids, itself somewhere near Grand Rapids—a city we know fairly well. Our condolences to all, vis-à-vis the climate (economic and otherwise) … Busch will be in Phoenix at the A3F for the screening of a film he made; actor Dom Lombardozzi (“Herc” on “The Wire,” “Dom” in “Entourage,” and “Vincent” in Busch’s film “Sympathetic Details”) may be with him.

MM: We have our theories why many directors start out doing horror films or mockumentaries. What made you choose an assassin film for your first writer-director project?
BB: Ryan Sands, my partner in crime, wanted to do that kind of film, wanted to play that particular role. So we wrote it around that idea, but I wanted to take the genre in a completely different direction. I wanted character to drive the action movie, so I was very particular in how I designed and edited it. I was thinking of Frank Reynolds’ “In the Bedroom,” which is a very slow film. I wanted to take what would easily be a fast-action film, slow it down to that speed, focus on things that mattered. Shoot-em-up is easy; what’s hard is drama and pause. It has a more European feeling as a film.
MM: Reading your director’s statement about the film, I felt vindicated in my long belief that many if not most directors approach films as a very conscious craft, in which the details and full box of the tools of expression in film are intentionally used to convey a subtext, an articulable idea, etc., beyond the topmost narrative level of the film—though also serving it, of course. When I first saw Jean-Jacques Beneix’s “Diva,” and I had this theory of Gorodish’s Zen-philosophical subtext of “stopping the wave” contrasted with the diva’s own kind of Zen-like refusal to let her performances be recorded (NOT stopping the [sine or sound] wave)—each coming at being “in the moment” in different way—my friends said, “Yeah, that’s logical, but we doubt it was all intentional.” I said, “You’re an idiot if you think it wasn’t.” [In his director’s statement and in e-mails, Busch had elaborated on his use of color, movement, vegetation, a significant photograph, overall environment, and other elements in weaving and conveying themes underlying the story in his film.]
BB: I can’t speak for many directors, although I’ve worked with a number of them. Not all are in tune with this kind of Gestalt filmmaking. I’m very interested in how sound and music go into it. I’m a photographer, so I frame a picture and then populate it. You’re stuck with the rectangle, so the rectangle itself becomes very important to me, the movement of the camera. With little money, it’s difficult with camerawork to do as much as you would like. I love to keep the camera moving; it sets a certain mood, if there’s motion which you use either for or against the characters. In “Sympathetic Details,” in the first scene, I’m just holding till we leave the first room. I storyboard very carefully. I had 12 days to shoot the whole film, so you have to know what you’re going for. There can’t be surprises. I wanted kind of claustrophobic interiors, up to the pigeon scene. I knew it was going to end in force, I wanted to have that symbolism throughout the film—you constantly see vegetation. Everywhere, somewhere, some place, there is encroachment of vegetation. It’s everywhere, just like people are. I moved all the plants in the hotel to make a corridor of black trees. Outside, you see a whole forest behind glass; inside you see an interior of vegetation.
MM: We’re thinking of other assassin-themed films: There’s “Grosse Pointe Blank,” “The Matador.” You mentioned you could watch Morgan Freeman read a phone book for an hour, so “Nurse Betty,” and the recent DVD release “The Contract” (with John Cusack), as well as “Lucky Number Slevin,” in which he plays a hitman or menacing mob guy, occur to us. We think of Jane Campion’s use of a specific color palette in “In the Cut” as paralleling your deliberate use of visual elements in your film. Speaking of “Slevin,” Bruce Willis’ banal speech to Lucy Liu’s hapless boyfriend before he kills him reminds us of Dom Lombardozzi’s (“Vincent’s”) monologue at the beginning of your film. Was that possibly an intentional reference?
BB: I did see that movie ... I don’t actually remember Bruce Willis in it that much, or that speech. It’s hard to say what rubs off on you, there are so many artists all rubbing off on each other. I was at war for two years. In the process we’ve moved a lot; in the past five years I’ve seen hardly any movies.
Films that have influenced me the most? “Blade Runner” has continued to blow my mind. I like the idea that it travels with, something about the existential message in that one. That movie has really been influential on me over the years. Although, I’m pretty small-scale. “The Professional” has also been an influence.
MM: How did you finance your project?
BB: We financed it ourselves, which means we’re in as much trouble as we can be! There’s that famous rule of the business, “Don’t do anything with your own money; use other people’s money.” As filmmakers, we promptly found that rule and broke it.
The actors did it for me, which was humbling. The crew came for cut rates. I begged the union for mercy, they were all people from “The Wire”; they were willing to do it for much less—all 12-hour days, pretty remarkable. They had such-and-such days to shoot an hour-and-a-half film.
MM: The film as submitted to A3F is about an hour; I assume you cut it?
BB: Yeah. I said, “I can’t knock more than a half hour off it.” I personally feel the scalpel marks on the script, we miss a few important moments to me. It’s hard to say how the audience will perceive it in its cut form; they’ll never know what the things are they’re not seeing.
MM: And, I assume, at an hour, it’s less marketable?
BB: Yeah, and anything less than an hour has no market at all. An hour can live on cable. There might be some love in the cable market for the film, especially with “The Wire” in its last season, getting attention again. I hoped to generate a little bit of buzz by submitting it to A3F. I’d like to get enough money to add the other half hour back in, reshoot and re-edit it, let it live a bigger life.
MM: Would it be disloyal of you to possibly agree with me that the hype around “The Wire” might be a little excessive? I love a lot of the original stuff on HBO, but I’ve only seen a few episodes of “The Wire.” However, I’m thinking of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” also about Baltimore and with “The Wire” writer David Simon contributing; “NYPD Blue,” to some extent; and “Hill Street Blues”—which I didn’t even glom onto till after its first couple years. Don’t they stand somewhat even with “The Wire?”
BB: I would disagree. The first three seasons of “The Sopranos” was brilliant, then it lost its way, except for maybe the last season or so. “The Wire” has never fallen down. But nobody watches it, it’s too smart for people. America’s gotten dumb over the last few years. It’s written like a novel; it’s not like episodic TV, which answers all the questions for you by the end of the hour, is kind of trite. You don’t just pick up a book and read a few pages and complain “I don’t know what’s going on.” It’s one of those great artistic travesties: “The Wire” has never gotten an Emmy. America is incapable of seeing itself; it has a complicated soul, it’s empire in decline. “The Wire,” its Baltimore, is kind of how we go out.
The language is also hard to follow, it’s really city language. [Playwright] Tony Kushner has said it’s like reading Shakespeare, “The Wire” is like a Shakespearean modern drama. The language is beautiful, but it’s hard to know what’s going on with it. It uses the slang of the time and place.
[Busch played Internet serial killer “Luke Ryland” on “Homicide: Life on the Street” for two episodes in 1999.]
MM: What led you to submit your film to the A3F?
BB: I think if you’re lucky the audience finds you. That’s why you do a lot of film festivals, they’re out there with the idea of getting filmmakers to talk to filmmakers. LA is kind of a veneer of something else. Festivals like Almost Famous are interested in what you did, why you did it, why is it important to the art of filmmaking.
I’ve had who knows how many conversations with journalists about my art shows—I have two traveling out there. It’s about the history of photography. One out of 25 understood anything about what I was talking about.
You’re our first interview about “Sympathetic Details.” It’s great to talk to someone who has a great grasp of the issues in film. In doing a hitman drama, I really am talking to the existential nature of life—the fact that nature is indifferent to us.
What I’m happiest about is that it was chosen to be viewed and it’s going to be seen. I’m not expecting it to pick up distribution just because it’s on the screen. I’m just happy that people like you are interested in it.

In an e-mail, Busch listed people from “The Wire,” etc., who appear in his film:
Ryan Sands is there with me in the back of the police readout room [in the first episode of the final season of “The Wire”]. Seth Gilliam is the police lieutenant who has to quiet us all down—he plays “Raymond” in our film in the pigeon room shootout. I cast him specifically because of his intensity and gift for projecting emotion. “Detective Lester Freamon” in the episode is reassigned as Major Crimes is disbanded and he plays “Carson” in our film, Clarke Peters. Clarke is television’s answer to Morgan Freeman. A magnificent performance. Domenick Lombardozzi, “Herc” on “The Wire,” in the bar scene with me and Seth, plays “Vincent” so brilliantly in the opening scene of our film. I rewrote that scene the most and it is one of my favorite scenes in film. I just play his bound and gagged partner. Can’t even get a line in my own film. John Doman, “Phillips” in our film, plays “Deputy Ops Rawls” on “The Wire” and gets to air some compassion after playing such a hard case for 5 years on the show. Jim True-Frost, “Prez” on “The Wire”, plays “Rogers” in our film. He dies by the tree at the top of the field with such wonderful disgust. I enjoyed casting him to play against his usual timid vulnerability. Edwina Findley played a doomed member of Omar’s crew on “The Wire” a few seasons ago and I brought her back from the dead to be killed again in the pigeon scene. Thuliso Dingwall plays one of the corner boys on “The Wire” and he did a brief, silent, and excellent job playing the pivotal collateral casualty in the pigeon scene that affects “Jonathan” too much and begins the end.
I cast all of them as I wrote the film and populated the rest with friends. The sniper, “Agent Money,” is Wayne McClam who was my team leader during my second combat tour in Iraq with the Marines. We called him “Money Gunny” until he was promoted from Gunnery Sergeant to Master Sergeant (a rank also known as “Top” for short) and then we called him “Top Dollar” so I named him “Agent Money” in the film credits. Somewhat of an inside joke if there ever was one. “Carson’s associate” is played by Daniel Silver who was my college roommate. Only Ken Arnold, who plays “Agent Chase,” and Marisol Chacin, “Lena,” were actually cast through auditions. Marisol gets to have the most fun. I would like to see then get some awards for their work. They donated their performances to me for this film and I am humbled by my debt to them.

In addition to his burgeoning film and TV resume and fine record of military service, Busch is also the son of the late novelist Frederick Busch. —David Tell

Fake News Dept. - 'World Mayor' Contest's local twist

2008-03-22T09:53:00.004-06:00

‘Futurama’ Phil
Mayor Gordon seeks ‘world’s best’ nod—maybe in a Phoenix that is ‘capital of the whole universe,’ eh

Fresh off his hands-down re-election as mayor of Phoenix, Phil Gordon is already campaigning again—this time for “Best Mayor in the World.”
According to the website for the municipality “World,” “The World Mayor project, organised by City Mayors, seeks out mayors who have the vision, passion and skills to make their cities amazing places to live in, work in and visit.”
Charley Jones of the Pierson Place Association neighborhood group, who tirelessly forwards self-promoting notices from a variety of tirelessly self-promoting city officials to various weary e-mail recipients, commented on Gordon’s worthiness for “Best Mayor”: “Phoenix is an amazing place to live in, work in and visit. Especially around July 17, while held up in Midtown traffic due to light rail construction. Or, on any of our highways—you pick.”
Stephen Lemons, who writes a column in the city’s weekly alternative paper in which city officials are often lambasted, said he didn’t think Gordon could take much credit for the city’s amazing climate. “But I don’t think he’s done anything significant to detract from the constant oven blast that is Phoenix in midsummer. And early summer. And late spring. And late early spring. And mid spring. And fall. And early winter. He contributes at least his quota of politician’s hot air. And it’s not as if the design of amazing new downtown projects includes major sources of shade or other deprivation of searing solar radiation caressing downtown’s new contingents of students, city workers and undocumented immigrants—who are about the only midsummer ‘visitors’ I’m aware of, despite the touted Civic Center expansion and city-owned hotel.”
Gordon’s e-mail pitch for support in his quest for the “Best Mayor in the World” honor notes that the outreach is “paid for by Phil for Phoenix ... not at government expense.” “Clearly, city pols are having trouble figuring out what to do with the financial largesse lavished on them in Phoenix’s recent election cycle,” said alternative weekly reporter Sarah Fenske, who wrote in January about “campaign contributions” received by the donkeyload by the surprise winner of the city’s District 7 Council seat, following the election. The new councilman’s generous admirers said they had simply forgotten to sign the checks and buy stamps earlier, what with the holidays coming up.
State pollster and political maven Bruce Merrill speculated about the oddness of a “Phil for Phoenix” organization touting “Phil for the World.” “I’m guessing this means Phil is hoping to make Phoenix capital of the world,” he said. “After all, it’s quickly becoming the political center not only of Arizona, but of Mexico and the ‘mountain West’—as well as becoming an extension of Chicago and its political machine—or vice versa (no pun intended). With all the transplants moving here from the ‘Second City,’ Chicago is starting to become known as ‘Phoenix East’—not to be confused with east Phoenix, which is not to be confused with the East Valley, although east Phoenix is easily confused with Scottsdale, with the naive notion that the Phoenix Film Festival actually takes place in Phoenix anymore.”
“Phil’s major qualification for ‘World Mayor’ is his clear ability to be ‘all things to all people,’” said former legislator and sometime preservationist Earl Wilcox, who, along with former state Sen. Bill Brotherton, was endorsed by Gordon in the Democratic primary in which they contended for the same Senate seat in 2003.
“That’s why we get a piñata, a Hanukkah bush and a Christmas tree!” said Jake Gordon, Gordon’s youngest scion in his second, winter crop of offspring.
Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris agreed, noting Gordon’s success at being all things to all people in the recent controversy over whether police should check the immigration status of brownish people arrested in the city.
(As noted in this publication last year, Gordon is virtually the same person as ubiquitous-in-2006 actor Gael Garcia Bernal. In that guise, he often goes by the alias “El Gordo.”)
However, “Nah, I think it’s his ‘amazing’ record on civil liberties,” countered Brotherton, noting Gordon’s amazing insight into the guilt of the suspects apprehended in the “Baseline murders” case, immediately on their arrest a couple years ago. “He also was Johnny-on-the-spot when it was pointed out that porn was accessible via computers at the city library, due to bothersome Constitutional loopholes allowing freedom of speech and expression,” Brotherton added, noting that the “World Mayor” project, with its Anglicized spellings, clearly is backed by proponents of a world order that would hobble Gordon with no such civil libertarian constraints. “Their spelling ‘honour’ with a ‘u’—but not ‘Mayor’—is clearly part of the stealth nature of the campaign to elect the world’s top ... figurehead,” he said.
City Manager Frank Fairbanks, nearing retirement in Phoenix, had no comment whether he would serve “under” Gordon in a World-municipality administration.
“Frankly, I think it’s his ability to reach across party lines to get things done” that recommends Gordon for World Mayor, said maverick politician and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who received Democrat Gordon’s endorsement in the not-yet-geared-up general election against whomever the Democrats themselves pick.
Handicapping Gordon’s chances, Merrill pointed out his potentially crippling Achilles heel: literally, his weak Achilles heel, with a tendon injury from when hizzoner fell a couple of years ago, reportedly running desperately to get to a Starbuck’s minutes before closing. “He’s lucky one of our deputies didn’t see him running in the dark like that,” said Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. “We woulda picked him up for ‘running while possibly Mexican’”—an offense County Attorney Andrew Thomas was then already enforcing, a year before the Legislature even enacted it into law.
“And he’d better not let our sidewalk speed enforcement cameras catch him doing that,” said Gov. Janet Napolitano.
While “World” Mayor seems to imply “mayor of Earth,” it’s not clear that it doesn’t also include the universe as a whole in its jurisdiction—though provisions for lodging votes by denizens, or citizens, of Outer Space—a demographic Gordon has prudently counted on in the past—were not clearly explained on the World Mayor website.
Nonetheless, “He’s got my vote!” announced Lynne Spears. “My too,” echoed international goodwill ambassador Borat Sagdiyev, adding, after a long pause, “Not!” Failed Democratic presidential candidate and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel was rumored to be considering lending Gordon his endorsement.
—David Tell

Editor’s note: Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s being in the running—and touting himself—for “Best Mayor in the World” is not part of what is fake about this “fake news” article. For more about the contest—and to vote for or comment on Phil—visit worldmayor.com.

Setback in campaign finance disclosure realm

2008-01-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

'Building Our Future' judgment overturned

Appeals Court finds in favor of bond committee, on a technicality

By David Tell, Messenger Editor

Government watchdogs thought they had reason to exult last year when a committee pushing Phoenix’s massive 2006 city bond package was found to have violated state disclosure law as to the funding sources for their advertising.
But a little less than a year after a Superior Court judge found the committee had unlawfully omitted disclosure, and awarded the plaintiffs over a million dollars in damages, the state Appeals Court has overturned the judgment, on what might well be considered a technicality.
The Appeals Court remanded the case to the lower court and directed that a verdict be entered in favor of the defendants, with court costs to be borne by the plaintiffs: Sonoran News reporter Linda Bentley and Childress Buick-Kia owner Rusty Childress.
The reversal hinged on a question dealt with by the Superior Court—wrongly, according to the appellate panel—concerning the application of a clause in the law’s disclosure requirement: that the disclosure of an ad’s top four funding sources is only mandated when at least 50 percent of its language deals with “the same subject.”
Superior Court Judge Michael Jones had ruled that because the seven Phoenix bond propositions constituted a package, with interlocking and overlapping spending items, they together represented a single subject—i.e., “the same subject,” per the clause in the law. Over about 23 pages of findings and supporting discussion, Appellate Judge Donn Kessler drew on law, precedent and the dictionary to conclude that, in supporting all seven bond propositions, the ads were not about the “same” subject.
In an interesting line of discussion, Kessler drew in points about the state Constitution’s “single subject” provision as illuminating the disclosure law’s “same subject” clause. Separately, he outlined the history of precedents, and the legal justifications, that required that the overall 2006 bond proposal be broken up into its seven separate ballot propositions in the first place.
According to a passage quoted in the appellate ruling, “the pertinent principle is that two or more separate and distinct structures or units cannot be combined into one single proposition and submitted jointly as one question. In the great majority of jurisdictions the general rule is well settled that ... there must be a separate proposition on the ballot for each distinct, unrelated, and independent object or purpose for which indebtedness is contemplated, showing separately the amount desired for each.”
So, for the Appeals Court—ironically—while the city was required to put forth its proposed bond items as separate propositions (thus representing different subjects), advertising supporting them was able to simply, easily and conveniently avoid disclosure requirements merely by supporting all of them in a single ad.
Kessler discussed the constitutional “single subject” requirement for initiatives and referenda to try to explain why the Legislature would have added the “same subject” exception to disclosure requirements, thus enabling such an easy avoidance of disclosure:
“Presumably, the legislative intent was to alert voters of the identity of supporters of ballot propositions dealing with the ‘same subject,’ so the voters could determine the possible implications of the propositions. This is especially true when various propositions deal with the same subject, but are actually adverse to or conflicting with each other such as those supporting bans on smoking but one of which is supported by the tobacco lobby. In contrast, in adding subsection (H), the legislature saw no need to require such identification when the advertisements dealt with more than one subject on which voters could separately cast their ballots and which were not conflicting,” Kessler wrote.
“Here, the voters could cast their ballots to approve some of the bond propositions, but not others, and the separate propositions were not necessarily dependent on each other and were not conflicting. Identification of supporters of all of the propositions, such as BOF [Building Our Future, the bond political committee], would not serve to identify the implications of voting on any one of the propositions.”
Kessler’s reasoning seems to contain the seeds of its own refutation. For example, he notes that it’s “especially true” that disclosure may aid voters in determining the implications of various propositions when they are on the same subject but backed by different interests. But while disclosure may be “especially” useful in such cases, that by no means implies it’s not also valuable when voters are evaluating different propositions.
In the case of the 2006 Phoenix bond program, watchdogs pointed out that the undisclosed backers of the propositions included some—Westcor and Arizona State University, to name just two—that might well have expected to benefit from all or several of them. The plaintiffs in the case believed the voters were entitled to know the identity of those backers.
Nonetheless, while admitting the Legislature’s underlying intent was generally to require disclosure, Kessler argued the limiting exception must have been legitimately and knowingly intended: “Applying the test from the ‘single subject’ rule to A.R.S. §16-912.01(H) is also compatible with the requirement that we construe statutory language to fulfill the legislative intent underlying the statute.”
“While we agree with the superior court that the overall legislative intent underlying A.R.S. §16-912.01 is to require disclosure to the public of who is supporting a ballot proposition, the clearly-stated legislative intent limited such requirement under subsection (H) of that statute to require disclosure only when fifty percent or more of the advertisement dealt with the ‘same subject.’ While there is no legislative history to guide us on what the legislative intent was in using the words ‘same subject,’ we presume that the legislature knew and approved of the judicial branch’s interpretation of the ‘single subject’ concept under Arizona Constitution, Article 21, §1.”
The question remains, then, why the Legislature would add an exception to disclosure that could so easily be exploited and invoked to avoid it? As argued above, the Appeals Court’s implication that the disclosure requirement is only useful to voters when applied to ads on a “single subject” does not necessarily follow.
Plaintiff Bentley said she’s trying to pursue just that question, to bolster an intended appeal to the state Supreme Court. “I’m researching the law and Legislature’s original intent,” Bentley said. “It goes back a long way. If you read campaign finance laws, they require disclosure, disclosure, disclosure. [But the Appeals Court is] saying ‘If you logroll it all together, you can circumvent the law.’”
“Logrolling” is the prohibited practice of bundling together disparate items in bond proposals or different subjects in state ballot propositions. But Bentley points out that in the advertising for the set of 2006 bond items, the Building Our Future political committee in effect “logrolled” its support for them all. And thus, per the Appeals Court, “In your promotion, you’re exempt from disclosure. It sounds absolutely stupid,” she said. “Out-of-state interests and others have spent millions of dollars on logrolling [support for the bonds] together.”
But why would the Legislature have created a loophole so big you can drive a truck full of cash through it? “Legislators don’t all have the best command of the English language,” Bentley said. “If you read [the statute], you go ‘What the hell does this mean?’”
Bentley said she was surprised the reversal turned on the apparent exception clause. “They threw it out on the one issue, which we thought was the nothing issue,” she said, reiterating that the Superior Court judge had found the bond propositions so entwined that they were on “the same subject.” “There’s so much crap in some of those bonds individually. So if they passed Prop 1 but not Prop 2, you’ve bought radio equipment for new police stations, and you don’t build the stations.” Or vice versa, she added.
The Appeals Court said since it found basis for reversal just on the clause at issue, it did not consider other arguments by the defendants, including attacks on the constitutionality of the disclosure statute on First Amendment grounds. Those defense arguments were also thoroughly considered and countered by Judge Jones.
In the meantime, the defendants have obtained a fraction of their approximately $1.2 million judgment, and they only got that—about $130,000—through assiduous legal wrangling, Bentley said.
“We have whatever they had left in the bank. They did a fraudulent transfer. They took the money and transferred it to a bank account and gave it to Andy Gordon’s firm to appeal, as a retainer,” Bentley said. “After we won, they were spending our money. If they lost [on appeal], there would be no way to pay us because they would have spent it. We had to go for garnishment, had a debtor hearing to find out what they did with the money—had to do a debtor exam. Lauren [Weinzeig] of Gordon’s firm finally told [plaintiff’s attorney] Carolyn [de Szendeffy], ‘We took that for retainer on appeal.’ We had the court make them give it back.
“We’re not going to spend it till we know for sure if we won or lost, in case we have to give it back,” Bentley said. In the meantime, if they lose, the fact they’re responsible for court costs isn’t so bad, she said. “Costs aren’t much, a couple hundred bucks. They were just awarded costs, not attorney fees—that would be hundreds of thousands.”

Ad dollars unspent or misspent till lately

2007-12-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

Aid plan for biz a letdown

City allotted $400K to help merchants along rail construction route

© 2007, Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved. May not be disseminated or reproduced without express written permission.

by David Tell, Messenger Editor

Despite the advent of a $400,000 city program to help advertise and promote struggling merchants along Midtown’s light rail construction route, business owners and their advocates remain decidedly unhappy.
That sentiment bubbled over at a Nov. 8 meeting among the parties, also attended by some interested representatives of local media.
Ferment about the dire impact of light rail construction on Midtown businesses has been growing since articles appeared last spring about the light rail’s construction bonus program, under which contractors are paid extra monies for responding to complaints about business access, signage, and even items such as broken water mains affecting commercial properties.
Dan Abrams of Abrams Realty, among others, objected to the bonus program as illegitimately and wastefully paying contractors for work—remedying the negative impacts of the construction activity—that they are already being paid for under their contracts with Valley Metro, the light rail agency.
While the Arizona Republic broke that story, it was subsequent reporting on the controversy in the June issue of The Midtown Messenger that seemed to light a fire under city officials, according to Abrams, who praised the article. He and Charles Jones of the Pierson Place neighborhood group met with Mayor Phil Gordon and District 4 Councilman Tom Simplot after the Messenger article appeared, and the result was the establishment of a program specifically using city funds to aid the merchant community. That program, to have kicked off around Labor Day, was announced in a letter to the editor authored by Jones appearing in the September Midtown Messenger.
In addition, according to a Metro release published in the July issue, the agency was allocating an additional $150,000 toward addressing access issues, and the city was dedicating two staff members as light rail traffic managers to look for access problems and other issues, and fix them.
For its June article on the need for public spending to support struggling merchants rather than to gratuitously reward contractors, The Midtown Messenger spoke to several business owners whose accounts of flagging customer traffic and grave dips in revenue due to the light rail construction portrayed the severity of the need.
In its touted plan to do promotional spending—the nearly half-million-dollar advertising program—the city’s effort has been a resounding disappointment, according to Abrams.
At the Nov. 8 meeting, “We had a very good discussion. A lot of the merchants who were there got up and spoke, and expressed their dissatisfaction and disgust with what the city’s been doing with advertising,” Abrams said. “Primarily they’ve done radio, half on a Latino station, which is virtually of no value.”
[Editor’s note: A clarification concerning the foregoing quote will appear in the Dec. 17 issue of the paper.]
The other main avenue of promotion the city has been pursuing involves a website called shoptheline.net, with the idea that multiple merchants would come up with special offers promoting their businesses on the site, and the city would spend advertising dollars to get people to visit the site to find those specials.
The Midtown Messenger’s experience with this proposed advertising program may be illustrative of that of other local, community-oriented print media. In mid-September, the paper began contacting the city to find out with whom to share its advertising and rate information. The paper received no responses to messages left for Maria Hyatt, the official in the City Manager’s Office with responsibility for light rail issues. It finally learned her subordinate Albert Santana was coordinating the advertising program for the merchants affected by the light rail, and he was then provided with the newspaper’s information.
Calls to Simplot’s office in September also brought dissatisfying results. A Simplot aide finally reached said she didn’t think the program was intended to include print advertising, and that the paper should approach Valley Metro directly for such advertising. Metro has in fact advertised in this paper in the past, but curtailed their latest contract short of the agreed number of ads due to a budget shortfall, its media buying agency said.
Santana left a message with the newspaper in response to a call reminding him of November’s ad deadlines, after nothing materialized in September or October. His message explained that timing of advertising under the program was tricky, in that it would be ineffective if launched before there is enough participation in the shop-the-line website.
As an example of other print outlets’ interest not only in the general issue but in getting advertising under the program, Abrams noted that Teri Carnicelli of North Central News and Phoenix Downtown’s Forrest Martin were both at the Nov. 8 meeting.
“[The city’s] been doing radio remotes, postcards, the Internet site—the website has been virtually worthless,” Abrams said. “We asked that they spend money advertising in community newspapers—The Midtown Messenger, North Central News, a paper in Moon Valley, Phoenix Downtown. We don’t want to see money in the Republic, it’s too expensive. We felt for the cost of those [more locally targeted] ads, if they did a $100 coupon—get $100 off on merchandise—it would be very effective, especially now coming up before Christmas.”
Abrams said city staff were told “‘It’s do or die, hit it hard with your advertising right now or you’ll miss out and waste your money.’ Albert didn’t seem to understand, just seemed to want to go off explaining his own ideas,” he said.
The Midtown Messenger’s reminder message to Santana a couple weeks before the November ad deadline pointed out it would be the city’s last effective opportunity to help the merchants with any advertising at the height of the holiday shopping season. The paper normally prints the third Monday of the month, and its next issue after November’s prints Dec. 17.
Too, “We contacted him a week and a half before the [Nov. 8] meeting, asked for a complete timeline of their plans, asked for a budget, what they were spending on what,” Abrams said, noting that he received no information in response. “Going back to August, we were asking, ‘Where were they going to advertise, what publications?’ and they just kept stalling us.”
Simplot called back during the writing of this article, in response to a message left on his Council cell phone on the Veteran’s Day holiday. In addition to his Council role, he’s also chairman of the board of Metro light rail, and the line segment construction affecting Midtown merchants lies largely in his district.
Simplot said he is aware of the problems. “We’re going to be shifting our advertising dollars. There was a specific request that we advertise in The Midtown Messenger, Phoenix Downtown, North Central News,” he acknowledged. “City staff and Metro staff have been very willing to be fluid in how they respond to the needs of the merchants.”
In response to concerns that staff have been pursuing ideas for the program to the exclusion of requests in the community, and that the new intent to try different avenues comes somewhat late to aid the merchants at a key season, Simplot qualified his assurances: “They’re flexible, for government. When you’re changing a big ship like the city of Phoenix and Metro, it’s going to be frustrating. Considering where we are, compared to where we were last spring, it’s promising. There’s going to be a lot of change,” he said. “I know that Dan is frustrated with Albert, but he also has to work within this bureaucracy. It rarely happens that one person can be the entity that drives something or that kills it. He has the responsibility for turning the ship.
“[Santana] understands the policy change, which comes from my office, and me, in fact,” Simplot added. “I share the frustration.”
He went on to cite an area where the program has made progress: “The restaurants who have not been at the BOMARC [Business Owners & Merchants Along the Rail Coalition] meetings in great numbers have come together with their own plans. Dan and Charley don’t know about that,” Simplot said. “We are working on a home and office delivery system that we should be getting going in the next seven to 10 days.”
Apprised of the planned delivery program, Abrams was not very impressed. He noted that there has been in place a “Two-for Tuesdays” promotion to boost restaurant patronage at least that one day a week. Jones, who has generously sent out mass e-mails on behalf of that and other transit-related issues and programs for months, cited other attention to restaurateurs along Central Avenue paid by the city and the press recently. “If you’re a restaurant or have some connections in that area, you may get some help,” he said. “If you’re a shoe store, you’re out of luck.”
A few hours after the conversation with Simplot, Santana called to inquire whether it would still be possible to get an ad—one simply urging people to patronize business along the construction route during the holidays—into the the Messenger’s November issue. With layout still in flux, the paper was happy to oblige, not only for the revenue, but in its desire to help the struggling parts of the business community in whatever way possible. That ad appears on page 3.
In the meantime, a member of another business advocacy group with concerns about the light rail’s impacts and processes e-mailed The Midtown Messenger in early September in response to inquiries based on news tips. The correspondent wrote that he thought Metro staffers, during community advisory board (CAB) meetings, were acting excessively as “advocates or lobbyists” for contractors under the construction bonus program. The source said he considered that alleged advocacy “unethical and a dereliction of their duties while having a fiduciary responsibility to the city of Phoenix/Valley Metro rail on behalf of the taxpayers footing the bill for the bonuses, which were intended to be awarded ‘only’ for performing duties above and beyond the specified contract provisions.”
The correspondent said that advocacy included “allowing actual voting tallies [on potential bonuses] to be overruled by floor motions to increase the scores because they did not think some Community Advisory Board members were being fair in their assessments of the contractors’ performance.”
This paper has been working for weeks to get details on the allegations and related concerns for this article, which has been planned for publication whether or not it ever won any light-rail-related advertising.
Howard Steere, Metro’s public Involvement manager, said Metro staff do not interfere in the process of deciding the construction bonuses. He said the process can be complex and somewhat confusing, as it was for a new member at a morning CAB meeting on Nov. 13, but that it is transparent and driven by the members—volunteer community representatives.
He said there have been cases of revotes on a particular score or bonus question, but that those have not been prompted by Metro staff.
The Midtown Messenger’s informant also said an effort to end the program was partly motivated by some CAB members’ votes allegedly being influenced by improper, undisclosed financial considerations. The Midtown Messenger spoke to this correspondent and an associate several times over a period of weeks seeking further details about the allegations, but as of press time for this issue, the individuals indicated they preferred not to disclose additional information, and would instead be waiting to see how the program continued to play out.
Absent details or corroborating evidence, The Midtown Messenger asked Metro’s Communications Manager Marty McNeil if she had heard any such charges. She said she had not, and agreed that one would think anyone sincerely interested in the ethical operations of the CABs and the appropriate expenditure of public money under the bonus program would want to make officials aware of any misfeasance. “I don‘t think there’s any doubt that that is what everyone wants. If someone has some information or documentation, we hope they will provide it to us,” McNeil said.
“That’s a pretty significant thing. The integrity of the CAB process is extremely important to us, if someone has evidence or documentation related to that, they should bring it to our attention.”
Abrams noted that votes to end the bonus program had repeatedly failed at least through the August timeframe.

MM Daily Dispatch

2007-08-23T23:30:00.000-06:00

Birth of a Legend

Yeshua wasn't the first little Jewish boy to be considered too precious by his mommy to be fully of this world—nor the last. (Just the most famous.)

By David Tell, (c) 1999, Merkureal Communications. All Rights Reserved

A child was once born in the stable at an inn. But that is not how this story begins ...

A weltering breeze played through the vineyards. A few more olives dropped to join those in stages of waste. Earlier windfallen were beginning to suffer of neglect, losing their plumpness and sheen and on their way to joining those of last season they lay among, themselves almost raisin-like—wrinkled, wizened.
Yosef sat under a palm, a skin of raw wine at hand, a rough platter with crumbs of honey-cake and the stems of several figs attracting ants on the ground nearby. A disturbance of dust in the track a few score yards away dissipated enough on its nearing to unveil a familiar merchant and his overladen asses.
“Yeshua!” called Yosef to the young child engrossed in something in the earth, close to the track. Though the traveler, his and his animals’ pace an ambling one anyway and slowing now, presented little danger to the child, Yosef spoke again, more sharply. “Ye-shua! By my side! Attend!” The boy scrambled to him, some kind of many-legged prize in his grubby hands. “My lord, abba, here I am!” cried the boy.
Yosef signed to the merchant, no need to stop, no chance of a sale. To Yeshua, mock-sternly now, a dusty eyebrow raised queryingly: “You want a potch im tukas?” An “in-joke” and endearment: He knew what it meant, the boy knew what it meant; it was all the more fun, and—when necessary—potent in effect for all that it was nonsense-talk to anyone else.
“Abba, abba, I wanted to save it!” Father and child inspected the ruin of a little “city” by the roadside, pebble structures and clay walls toppled by the hoofsteps, dung beetles plodding amid, oblivious. A tear left a track on the boy’s dust-smeared cheek.
“In our secret heart, a son should grow up savior of all our cities,” muttered Yosef. “You want to be a great judge, or a healer?” He tickled the boy. “I want to be king!” he cried. “Eh, my scion of David,” said Yosef. “Or you could be, maybe, a rabbi, why not?”
He snaked his right arm around the boy’s middle and hoisted him up to his hip, outthrust to support him like a sack of millet, Yeshua with hands free to guard his prize and legs trailing. And giggling at Yosef’s hardly feigned grunts and clumsy efforts to hike him up, get his hip under the increasingly solid weight of the boy.
“Miryam! A sack of grain for you to grind! Throw this good-for-naught sack in the cellar, get it out of my sight. What a load!”
“Forget the nonsense, what did you leave roadside, eh? Get me the platter, and bring in the wine, no more for you, you goodfornothing.”
“Mama, look what I saved!”
“Eh, what is it? Saved, for what?” she sniffed. “Eh (nonplused, disgust all a show), vermin you bring in. Yosef! Make this crawling thing scarce, and you with it. Bring me the things, then patch the netting before all the olives are a waste, trodden into the dirt, eh? Eh! Let no more wine pass your lips, and you had better not have trafficked in the way with our bit of silver, or my sweet-cakes, for that matter.”
“I ate them myself!” he protested thickly, drawing from her a scathing glance, and another sniff.
“Ate, and drank, and drank some more, you goodfornothing,” she said. “Yeshua, what a man I’m tied to, what a figure. Him you show how to live,” she added, addressing Yosef, though not looking his way. “What a man. What man? What husband?”
“Ema!” cried the boy. “Please don’t yell at abba.”
“Some daddy!”
“Mama!”
With the side of a long finger, Yosef rapped the boy sharply on the shoulder, glanced a silencing glance.
“Don’t touch the boy!” shrilled Miryam. “My precious. My baby. My angel!”
Yosef went to embrace her, to silence her, too, but she stiff-elbowed him from her even as his arms barely clasped her around the shoulders. Yeshua ran to join the embrace he hoped he saw, but as Miryam’s elbows burst Yosef’s hug, his arm flung the boy away too, his bony knuckles rapping the boy’s temple so that he cried out.
“Yi! You hit this boy? You, you, you goodfornothing!”
Yosef suddenly stood on his dignity. “Do not speak to your husband, this child’s father, so! Shame! Know your place, know ye mine!”
The boy’s and mother’s attention were both caught in this outburst. But Miryam laughed. “Your place? Your place is in the market, where you squander your time, our hard-earned coppers, our harvest, our hopes. What are you? Your place? Your place is out there, neither by this hearth nor in my bed. This child’s father? What a father. I’ll tell you father. As much a father as you are, God almighty should be his father. Unseen, yea, as much a father as you to him He is, what little we have by His leave, thank you for it I will not!
“Yeshua, Yeshua, my precious, my little lord, so beautiful, sweet and perfect, he could have come only from the Lord Himself! Ha, when thou liest out in the dust in drunkenness, who liest with me? For such an issue, only the Lord God Himself could have known me. Never you! Never thy stinking, drunken, pawing embrace, to bring such a child. The Lord God is his father! Don’t dare seek such due. It is above you to claim!”
Yosef glowered. Yeshua looked wide-eyed from one to the other. Yosef’s brimming anger spilled over onto the boy, how could it not? He strode out—Miryam clutched the child to her—the child, eyes bright, brimming too, though no hot tear fell.
Over time, after much of the same, Yosef became embittered and estranged. Who could blame him? When Yeshua left home, he fumed and drank even more, and Miryam loudly disavowed him.
A rare visit home for Yeshua, father and son simmered with resentment.
“If you won’t trim your hair, at least comb it,” said Yosef. “And that beard—if it can even be called that, you young Sadducee!” Yeshua just looked at him disdainfully.
“And why don’t you get a job—will you?” bleated Yosef. “Oh, like you?” Yeshua couldn’t resist retorting.
As if he hadn’t heard, Yosef went on: “Maybe then you can find a respectable girl. A nice girl, what’s so wrong, start a family. Make an old man happy. Even yourself, you should be so lucky.”
It was all Yeshua could do to turn the other cheek. “You’re not good enough to kiss the ground my Miryam walks upon. My Miryam Magdalena—don’t you utter her name. Nor that of my saintly mother, you ...”
“Ha, saintly!” spat Yosef, but grinning. “Reminds me your hallowed birth. To hear your mother tell it, great sages bowed down, kissed your little baby feet, anointed your pupick, bestowed great gifts. What a joke. Traveling salesmen, no more. Here for a convention. Balm and unguents? What’s a little pip like you want ’em for? They fancied your mama, the swine. Golden bands that graced her neck oh so dainty, the vagrants almost forgot: how cute on your humid little brow, too. Best I can say for her, she was clueless their motives—she sure did covet their wares, though.”
Silence ensued. Yeshua left with a controlled calm, a tense dignity. An aggrieved humility.
This tiff did nothing to temper his obstinate provocations to authority: local, temporal, imperial, priestly, divine. Passive-aggressive, some called it: “King of the Jews?” “That’s what you say.” Nyah. Still, kind of unassuming. And it was hard to put your finger on anything wrong in what he himself said, though by the time it reverberated through the throngs and rabble, is it a surprise he’d be fingered for an example? Nice Jewish kid gone wrong—not so wrong, but you know, wrong place-wrong time, family-of-origin issues, how it goes.
Later—bearing up pretty well, considering—he reflected. “Abba, abba, why did you forsake me?” he moaned.

This short story has been rejected by Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy and The New Yorker magazines.

MM Daily Dispatch

2007-08-13T17:49:00.000-06:00

I go there in my mind

The improbability of anything turning out as intended disproves Intelligent Design

I just read a column in another local publication, titled "There’s no way that just happened!" This was a religion column, and — beyond a number of the doctrinal and hortatory points it made — one of the notable things about it was the number of words printed in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. (Now, I’m sure this was completely intentional. We sometimes hear the advice as to e-mail etiquette, "Don’t type in all caps, it looks like you’re yelling." Here, I’m sure that was the intended effect: This pastor was writing as if delivering a sermon, and at various points in that sermon, I know he would be rather worked up and joyously enthusiastic, and he wanted you to feel that, even while reading quietly to yourself. And I did feel it.)
The other thing notable about his column, though, is that, starting with its title, it takes the opposite view from the one in an essay I recently wrote for my evangelical Jewish friend, who lives in Washington. D.C. Yes, you heard me, this is a right-wing, evangelical Jew (no, not a "messianic Jew," not one of those so-called "Jews for Jesus"). He’s an avid supporter of "intelligent design," and of President Bush, along with all of his policies (except his refusing to veto excessive spending). He’s also virulently anti-"choice," considers Jack Abramoff an upstanding fellow, says liberals and the New York Times are all a bunch of liars promoting a radically secular agenda, etc., etc.
He and I have been arguing over a number of these issues, especially evolution, ID and scientific vs. Biblical explanations for things, via e-mail for about 5 years now.
Side note: Interestingly, this friend and I go back to the 7th grade, and in that era, there was no particular clue he would turn out to be a right-wing wacko. Within certain margins, he seemed quite normal, including being normally rebellious. He introduced me to some good rock albums when I first joined a record club. He also sold me his electric guitar. In the 8th grade, we got sent to the principal’s office for gambling on the school bus. (We were just playing gin and Ohell, for a half-cent a point. Is that gambling?! I ask you.) We tried growing pot out at his once-reprobate-bachelor Dad’s old babe-lair cabin in the woods … just to name a few mutual, harmless adolescent exploits. (Actually, speaking of pastors, visiting him at college once, a preacher’s daughter seduced me at a frat party. Dating her later, I took her out to said cabin one weekend. "David, is this wrong?" she drawled, apparently in shock at the now non-drunken, premeditated brazenness of our trysting.)
Back to bizness. Well, I had a brainstorm recently and figured I might finally be able to explain the correctness of evolution to my old friend — to everyone, in fact — in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Like the reverend’s column I just read, it has to do with what’s more likely: improbable things happening by blind, random chance, or, alternatively, "on purpose"? The idea is so easy, so universally comprehensible, I even sent it to Newsweek as a "My Turn" column. Still waiting to hear back on that. In the meantime, I offer it here, where lesser renown and notoriety, or even pillorying may await me:

The proof is now available. Kind of like with profound mathematical and physics theories, I can now prove the veracity of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design "theory" by way of a thought experiment.
In doing this, I think I am emulating the ID proponents. They construct thought experiments that "prove" ID by showing it defies common sense to think certain things in nature could happen by chance; therefore they must have come about due to an underlying, purposeful mind--probably God, but who knows? It could be those aliens who left the monoliths around littering the solar system, in order to further our evolution from dumb, doomed australopithecines to aggressive, therefore thriving, hominids (and beyond!).
Now, in response, scientists tend to come up with points that get around the IDers’ objections to evolution. I’m not going to go into those back-and-forths. I will instead comment on how philosophers of science--and without having to know much actual science either--can also identify the fallacies in IDers’ thinking, at a more fundamental level.
For instance, a few months ago, one of those liberal-secular New York Times contributors pointed out that one reason ID seems appealing as an explanation is because people basically have trouble truly grasping the immensity of time and space--and, I would add, the amazingly fertile hubbub in the realm of the very small and fast. In other words, if people other than cosmologists, subatomic physicists, geologists, microbiologists and so on could really get their heads around how zillions of events (most of them leading to nothing much interesting), over huge spans of time, at a minuscule, frantic scale and pace could and have led and do lead to all observable natural phenomena (even the most complex and autonomous, such as most "higher" animals, and many people), they would have much less problem allowing the explanatory power of evolution.
By contrast, since many people have very little imagination concerning scientific concepts, and limited ability to hold several abstractions in mind long enough to connect them into an intellectual framework, they think a number of what I consider superstitious, pseudo-explanations for things are more likely, and simpler. But pushing the question of complexity back one step to a Mind capable of coming up with nature’s forms and processes doesn’t really explain anything, even if it might perchance be true. That’s probably why the Founding Fathers were Deists, if by it they meant that a God may be the "First Mover," but the way in which it then all works out over the eons is a fascinating subject for scientific inquiry, not faith-based nostrums. (Nate also disputes what he calls the "propaganda" that says the Founders were Deists and promoted "separation of church and state." Oy vey, vas ist dis mishugahss?)
So, back to my thought experiment:
I have a concept called, "Couldn’t have done that if you tried." [Editor’s note: See, there’s the contrast with the pastor’s title, "There’s no way that just happened."] You know, like when you toss a piece of trash at the wastebasket and it happens to perch precariously on the edge, just barely teetering there (maybe with the help of the wall--but it’s still pretty cool, and highly unlikely). Or something else, say a slightly crumpled envelope, playing card or piece of a box, or a dollar bill (or, for the less flush, a quarter): you toss it or drop it, and it lands--and stands or leans--on its side or in the slot in a way that you could never have achieved in a million years if you were trying. I’m sure everyone can come up with their own examples. (Many of mine have to do with throwing something and it balancing improbably somehow--must be my inferiority complex about how I’ve never been able to get a basketball anywhere near the basket, let alone propped on the rim, against the backboard. By contrast, my old friend was pretty good with a ball, and still has a nickname associated with some player named Hal _____, number 15 …)
But I digress (again). The bottom line is, my thought experiment (really more just a notion, actually) proves that evolution is correct. The most amazing things happen by chance, more amazing than what tends to happen by design, and the more amazing, the more likely it is that it couldn’t have happened "on purpose." (OK, so it’s just a variation on the old saw, "Truth is stranger than fiction.")
Same for evolution: Only chance could account for all the amazing occurrences that have led to all the complex and bizarre forms we know in nature. Such as Michael Jackson. (Ta-dum.) No way anyone--even a God, or a super-brainy and unaccountably benevolent alien--could have done it all on purpose. That would defy the odds, for sure.

So, now you’ve been given some exposure to simple, common-sense based, easy-to-understand formulas for the opposing viewpoints on a major issue of our time. Which side do you come down on? Let us know.
— Or, maybe, you happen to have landed kind of on edge, improbably balanced on an ear, shoulder and hip-bone, not even immediately apt to fall over one way or the other. But if you write to tell me about it, I have only one request: Avoid all-capital-letters.
Thanks!!!

--David Tell

MM Daily Dispatch

2007-08-11T18:03:00.004-06:00

Rights group assails exploitation of baby greens in salads

From ‘Ban foie gras’ to ‘Don’t walk on the grass’?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) offshoot PET-V announced in a release distributed to major news outlets yesterday that it is calling for a boycott of the growers and purveyors of baby greens, widely used in--and increasingly, as--salads in homes and eateries around the world.

Originally a trendy niche item like sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and “designer” salty snacks such as Pringles and Sun Chips, the little-understood “bistro effect” has led to a broad demand for the confetti-like mixtures of young spinach, callow arugula, immature lettuce and something tantalizingly dubbed “escarole” by savvy marketers.

Now that ordinary supermarkets sell the forage by the bagful directly to unwitting consumers, PET-V has put its foot down, it says (though only on designated paved walkways). Following on successful campaigns of decades past to raise awareness of the brutal clubbing of baby seals for their oh-so-silky pelts, PET-V says as a parallel effort to the boycott, thousands of volunteers will commit civil disobedience, trespassing at organic farms throughout California’s Central Valley, lying in the path of mechanical harvesters before they neatly, inhumanely, and with chilling efficiency, shear off millions of the young sprouts in the prime of infancy.

PET-V’s release pointed to the seminal example of the late anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, whose training as a Yaqui Indian medicine man included not only talking to plants, but constantly apologizing to them, especially to the female specimens of dioecious, or sexually differentiated, varieties. Shortly prior to his death a decade ago, Castaneda said plants, including fresh salads, had finally begun talking back to him, and that--while, unlike erstwhile comedian and noted amateur early childhood development specialist Steve Martin, he does not “speak baby talk”--he could detect especially heart-rending sighs and plaintive-sounding whispers when consuming underage salad ingredients, especially chervil.

Addressing how, in addition to just eschewing “baby greens” whenever detected on menus and in stores, consumers might recognize them in unlabeled situations, the PET-V release said, “they’re not crunchy, and they don’t taste very good.” The lack of turgor pressure “crispness” otherwise normally found in fresh samples of Romaine, and, especially, iceberg-based salads, “also means the leaves of juvenile lactucas are much too flaccid to really support the frequently added walnuts and cranberries, not to mention leaden globs of goat-cheese-laced dressing,” the release noted. “Observing these rules of thumb may also help consumers avoid regular, but very wilted, salads,” it added.

A visit to the PETA website also turned up news of the imminent formation of PET-M, one of whose first campaigns will be to seek alternatives to the brutal culinary grinding of natural, defenseless sea salt--a practice that harks to the grinding of human bones to make bread for giants, who cited their need for the additional high-quality dietary calcium and phosphorus in justifying the now frowned-upon practice.

Meanwhile, civil rights groups have called for activists as well as members of the media to cease the demeaning use of “boycott” in their promulgation and coverage of rights campaigns.

--David Tell

MM Daily Dispatch

2007-08-09T23:12:00.000-06:00

Dried salted shrimp adulterated with eye crusties, regulators say

Accidental discovery puts agencies on spot to develop new tests

Almost unnoticed in the recent spate of tainted imports from China, an alert consumer has found another compromised product category: dried salted shrimp. Tiny specimens of the crustacean--a slightly less puny version of the shellfish typically served by the wheelbarrow at Red Lobster restaurants--are customarily sold, shell-on, in small bags of only an ounce or so. Used as a seasoning in Chinese cooking, their tangy pungency contributes a subtle zing to a variety of traditional recipes.
Used as directed, the adulteration of the seasoning might never have been caught. However, Boise, Idaho resident Angelica K. Lowery, who eats the crunchy, tawny, translucent little arthropods “out of hand” as a salty snack, recently noticed one of the tiny “shrimp” apparently wrapped around an eyelash.
“I knew right away it wasn’t just one of their feelers”--bits of antennae often mixed in with the shrimp--“because it was jet black and lustrous, like in some of those mascara commercials where they have really pretty Asian girls,” Lowery explained. “I was so lucky it stood out so I noticed it. I absent-mindedly eat my own boogers just like anybody else, but eating somebody else’s eyelash and gunk woulda really grossed me out.”
In fact, “I like to vomited” when she realized the little “shrimp” was originally a large-ish gift to some unidentified Chinaman from The Sandman, according to an affidavit filed as part of a $66.3 million lawsuit for emotional distress against Vietnamese packager Suk Lam Dik, Chinese distributor Long Yum Wong, Singaporean shipper West Oceania Consolidated Maritime Freight, Inc., the U.S. Customs Service, the Food and Drug Administration, Ranch 88 Mercado supermarket and the Food Network’s "Iron Chef" television program, from which she originally learned of the tasty condiment.
Besides the eyelash, another tip-off to the ersatz nature of the insect-like tidbit she almost consumed was its absence of the little black eyes normally present on the authentic version, the lawsuit said. Other than that, the eye crusty closely resembled one of the crunchy little crustaceans in its color, contorted curvature, apparent consistency--and even its seeming segmentation and the presence of leglike offshoots, Lowery claimed.
In other recent product safety scares involving Chinese imports, thousands of American dogs, cats and gerbils have died from tainted pet food; farmed fish has been found to contain banned antibiotics; unapproved antifreeze ingredients have been detected in “people” toothpaste; and lead has been found in the paint on “Thomas the Tank Engine” train toys often recommended as reusable “teething biscuits” by the U.S. WIC mother and infant nutrition program.
The FDA, which sets maximums for the number of roach parts, rat feces, and other inevitable contaminants that literally creep into the United States’ bountiful and otherwise wholesome grain supplies, said it would have to develop regulations imposing similar limits for “eye sandies” in imported dried salted shellfish.
Consumer groups urged the agency to be proactive and take the crisis as an opportunity to also regulate nail clippings, toe jam, regular (nasal) boogers, pubic hair, dental fillings, dandruff and the like, and to develop the needed chemical tests or inspection regimes for detecting these and myriad other forms of "foreigner" human detritus. However, in a joint release, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Democratic Leadership Council noted that, as of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings following his 1991 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, pubic hair contamination has a domestic and not just an international component.
Risks from such contamination of the Oriental seasonings, imports of which measure in the hundreds of pounds and thousands of dollars annually, “absolutely” militate in favor of extensive new inspection programs, according to a government spokesman, who said the project would likely be outsourced to contractor subsidiaries of Halliburton and Bechtel corporations and Goodwill Industries, under the supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers. In the meantime, consumers have been advised to carefully examine packages of the seafood they may already have in their pantries, especially those from lot number Chs87DLkjf [irreproducible Vietnamese ideograms] AiuX1222222ZLk.

--David Tell

MM Daily Dispatch

2007-08-08T21:04:00.000-06:00

President Bush’s colonoscopy finds blockage due to those little fruit label stickers

Delicate removal procedure adds tense minutes to Cheney's term as acting president

Long the bane of consumers who trim their fingernails too short and of fastidious housewives annoyed at finding them pasted all over the kitchen, the little stickers adopted years ago by supermarkets to individually identify each vegetable or piece of fruit have now claimed a more significant victim: President Bush.
Little reported following the president’s recent colonoscopy—which put Vice President Cheney openly in charge of the world for a few hours and turned up a few more innocuous polyps—was a near-complete blockage of President George W. Bush’s ascending colon due to an accumulation of the obnoxious (though not actually toxic) little stickers.
"I've been wonderin' why my 'output' didn't seem, as, uh, to match my intake," remarked the president before his regular radio address the following week, apparently not aware he was on the air. He added he hadn't felt especially bloated. But, even using Metamucil, "my spool did seem kinda rabbity," he said.
After he fainted briefly choking on a pretzel during his first term in office, the president’s handlers have closely monitored his noshing, in an attempt to assure his safety. “We watch him like a hawk when it comes to stems, pits and seeds,” as well as other, already implicated choking hazards in the form of salty snacks, said a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, on condition of anonymity. “We’ve observed the president successfully removing the fruit labels, so we felt we had no reason to be concerned in that area.”
However, “He seemed to be a bit bewildered what to do with the label from a banana” following a state luncheon at Camp David, confided Queen Elizabeth II to Entertainment Tonight about her recent visit stateside. “He finally just put it in his mouth, which did seem a little odd.”
Such "pica" behavior—the eating of inedible materials such as lead paint chips, bits of dirt and memos concerning fired U.S. attorneys and warrantless wiretap programs—usually tends to be limited to the very young.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, originally an emergency room physician, said the president’s approach to the labels—removing them first, eating them afterward—is probably habitual, even with fruits whose peel is normally eaten. “If he was just eating the labels along with the skin, not bothering to remove them first, the natural laxative effect of the fruit would probably have carried the stickers out of the system,” Carmona speculated.
The White House chef corps insisted they aren’t partly responsible for the blockage. “Af course we remove ze labels from ze frooeet and ze vegetables before we cook zem”—even from potatoes during the Freedom Fries episode—transliterated Deputy Chef Jacques Argenteuil. “Do you sink we are barbarians?”
Doctors say the blockage, though significant, was never life-threatening, though they were concerned it posed a risk of cutting off the flow of nutrients to the president’s brain, especially when clearing brush. More interestingly, they said, it may have affected his judgment during the estimated decade during which the stickers formed an almost inch-thick layer. Ironically, they may have interfered with the absorption of vitamin W, a newly discovered compound present in trace amounts in the left parietal lobe of the normal adult male Bush brain. The vitamin’s precise function is not known, but initial studies have shown that members of the political dynasty whose ascending colon has been removed have less of it in the brain and display a propensity to praise the incompetent and invade the wrong country.

—David Tell

Midtown Messenger's District 7 City Council endorsement

2007-08-05T11:51:00.000-06:00

Marston: the real deal, indeed!

Whatever your affiliation in this technically non-partisan race, she is the best pick for Dist. 7, hands down

© 2007, Quicksilver Publishing Group/The Midtown Messenger. All rights reserved.

For anyone who thought this endorsement was a foregone conclusion, based on our long acquaintance with the endorsee and our alignment of interests given this paper’s mission and scope—we wrestled with it. We had misgivings (see next few paragraphs). And in the end, foregone or not (believe what you will), we think we can defend it, decisively.
Before we get really rolling on the whys and wherefores of the endorsement, we have a confession to make. While City Council elections are officially non-partisan, the reality is, party still matters. As readers may have intuited from our public Valentine to District 4 Councilman Simplot last winter, our only issue with him in his races for his Council seat in 2003 and 2005 was that he wasn’t the Democrat. Perhaps partly for that sin, he came within a few dozen votes of losing to the interim appointed incumbent, Jessica Florez, who replaced Phil Gordon upon his run for mayor.
Here at Midtown central, we’re died-in-the-wool Democrats, a fact of which my parents are proud (they raised three for three, they point out). While on one hand I’m all for personal responsibility, dislike the public K-12 education establishment (teachers unions and colleges) and support many traditional “family values” (and am a biker, a gun rights supporter, erstwhile hunter, etc., blah blah blah)—I also vehemently oppose school vouchers, the current administration, and the Republican tilt in general toward corporate welfare and creeping infringement on civil rights and liberties and the economic well-being of the middle, working and underclasses.
That said, that’s why, faced with two reasonably competent and honest candidates, I will always vote for the Democrat. I am a registered Democrat. I vote a straight ticket in statewide and national elections. There are two other simple reasons for this:
One may personally know, like and feel aligned, sometimes, with the candidate of the other party. To my Dad’s irritation, my mother once softheadedly voted for a Republican candidate for city council (back East) because he had been my piano teacher. However, how would you like to have given someone you wouldn’t ordinarily vote for because of their party affiliation their first elective office, only to find them later rising to high public office as an outed demagogue and fascist? I wouldn’t. That would be adding injury to the “insult” of having crossed party lines in the first place. (That’s the “Oops! I voted for young Hitler or David Duke!” argument.)
Second, as my father always pointed out, in legislatures, the outcome on many critical issues comes down to party-line votes, where with arm-twisting enforcement of discipline by party leaders, the result is often a matter of simple arithmetic. Would you want a key legislative issue to go the wrong way because you helped put a member of the opposite party in the Legislature—just because you liked him or her? As I’ve seen it expressed elsewhere recently, party identification is shorthand for the likelihood that Candidate A probably shares more of your values than the one from the other party. (What’s that you say? Independents? They’re the agnostics of the American political scene, and, as my senior Honors thesis was in philosophy of religion, you don’t want to get me started on agnosticism …)
So, on to the District 7 candidates, who are vying to replace longtime incumbent Doug Lingner. First, let’s note that most of the city’s historic districts and many other vulnerable neighborhoods lie in District 7. And like the city as a whole, there is great change—development and its associated tensions, pressures and controversies—going on in the district. That said, we’re focusing on the Midtown end of the district and what we feel is best for it. (What’s best for it is probably best overall.)
For starters, we’re not endorsing Art Harding. He seems like a good guy, granted—earnest, knowledgeable, experienced in governmental matters and processes. But in his answers to our candidate questionnaires, published last month, he notably seemed less than fully sensitive to the issues raised by last year’s passage of Proposition 207, which authorizes lawsuits over alleged loss of value to properties based on government actions such as historic preservation zoning. While Art has his finger on the pulse of the wider electorate on this issue, he seems to lack a nuanced view of and sensitivity to the excessive impediments such lawsuits throw up against some appropriate, protective rezonings. That position, as well as some other general leanings appertaining to Art’s political persona, was enough for us to rule him out.
Then there’s Michael Nowakowski. Frankly, the guy scares us. (Either it’s him or his shrewd and aggressive communications director, Stephen Molldrem, but in any case, we have to identify a candidate with his campaign’s style and tactics, even if he is not the author of all of them.) Nowakowski’s campaign has seemed to us nakedly and abusively opportunistic from the get-go. OK, it’s nice he realizes the value of campaigning in this end of the district, where educated and informed voters turn out in higher numbers than elsewhere, it’s believed. It’s great that Michael and his aides recognize the existence of the historic neighborhoods, and their activities and issues (and this newspaper). However, we felt beaten over the head right out of the starting gate last winter with notice of Michael’s appearances at the Willo Home Tour, the Encanto Clubhouse, his requests for meetings and coverage, you name it.
You may see nothing wrong with that, and there isn’t, until you also see how the campaign has glommed onto active controversies in the ’hoods to weigh in on, such as the Willo streetscape issue, where he’s apparently going to bang heads together in the city to get it resolved. Sure. And, Mike, can you come fix my leaky dormer? Maybe you’ve also got some front porch benches to hand out. Oh, and my neighbor parks in front of my house. Anything you can do there, if elected?
That’s not to say the Willo issue isn’t a valid one requiring some leadership in the city and in the district’s Council office. It’s the way the Nowakowski campaign has cynically identified some hot-button neighborhood issues to inject himself into that offends us.
For instance, there’s also his participation on one of the 2006 bond committees last year, leading to claims in his campaign literature that he got the big bucks allotted for preservation items. Yeah! Like his campaign signs around Midtown, that he’s “preserving historic homes,” and "enforcing the law" or whatever the wording is. Yep. Mike Nowakowski is out there on the right side of whatever your concern is in Midtown, you betcha!
Seems to me the guy just wants the office real bad.
More seriously, folks, then there’s Laura Pastor. She and Nowakowski have been slugging it out for months, each trying to lock up coveted endorsements: the Firefighters Association, Police organizations, the Chavez family, etc., etc. Still, if these were the sum of the candidates, she’d probably have our vote. She’s the daughter of the effective and respected Rep. Ed Pastor. She’s paid some dues in community, civic, political involvement and educational and professional experiences. But we’re also a little put off at the way the presumed Democratic establishment in central Phoenix has virtually stampeded in her support. It’s a juggernaut! (Except for a few pickings for Nowakowski.) I guess her dad’s position carries corresponding influence, not to mention that in the many officially, putatively nonpartisan power circles in downtown Phoenix, being Democratic is increasingly chic. (Except for Mayor Phil, who in his latest endorsement—we’ll kindly call it a gaffe, though there are other names for it—has said [according to reports] he’s behind Sen. John McCain for president, no matter whom the Democrats field next year. As when Phil endorsed both Earl Wilcox and Democratic primary rival Bill Brotherton for a state Senate seat four years ago … well, what can we say that less restrained rags such as the New Times haven’t already said more pithily?)
But Laura isn’t the last word in this race. We’ve discussed Midtown’s “favorite son” candidates with a number of local neighborhood and community leaders, and some of them like her. They have found her to be a good listener, to be someone who wants to find out from the community (especially from them) what it needs, and act accordingly.
From our point of view, that’s partly because she doesn’t know or understand the community and its issues as well as many others do (including the remaining candidate, Ruth Ann Marston).
Frankly, as nice and thoughtful as I believe she is, our distinct impression is that Laura is not the brightest light in the firmament. Do we want someone who needs to be led, or do we want someone who is a true leader? Do we want someone who needs to have the issues explained to them (and then, who knows from whom she takes her final cues in her votes and advocacy?), or do we want someone who knows the territory and its issues inside and out, and, while opinionated (sometimes immodestly so), at least knows not only the community, but her own mind, and is guided by long experience and sound principles? —Someone who can and will hold their own with community leaders, moneyed interests, Council colleagues and city staff alike (not to mention players in other levels and branches of government). That said, Ruth Ann is always courteous, measured and respectful in her demeanor and interactions.
In my view, we’ve had just about enough of political dynasties in this country. I like the Kennedys, but look at the latest generation—in particular, Patrick. I don’t like the Bushes, and look at Jeb—a competent but highly partisan governor—and worse, his brother, our (I choke on this) president. Let’s not give another Pastor our vote just based on name recognition, family pull and party affiliation, notwithstanding my partisan preamble above. As far as that goes, for Ruth Ann, the District 7 Council seat may be the capstone of her long career in public involvement, to which she can be expected to fully devote her substantial experience and energies. For Laura, it’s probably just positioning herself for higher office—i.e., succeeding her dad in Congress?
Forgetting Laura for the moment, let’s just home in on Ruth Ann’s positive attributes and accomplishments that qualify her for the Council seat: Longtime educator in Midtown, in leadership roles. Longtime member (including as chair) of the Encanto Village Planning Committee, the citizens-level body that gets the first shot to hear zoning and other land use issues, and helps work out the most effective compromises between property owners and other residents. Director of the Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods Coalition, a forum for airing and addressing issues facing those neighborhoods. Key participant in the Downtown Voices Coalition, which seeks to support a place in downtown’s cultural and economic life for the vitalizing and civilizing role of artists and small independent businesses, by addressing potential incursions by more powerful interests and attempting to hold the city to its own policies and ordinances, as well as promoting progressive and innovative solutions.
The number of difficult and sensitive public policy issues Ruth Ann has already personally helped mediate and resolve is … innumerable.
Ruth Ann is a longtime Phoenix resident, who raised a family and still lives in a modest house in Willo, where she remains approachable to residents with concerns. She has a vast wealth of knowledge and experience of the city, the state and the district. She, of course, could tell you more about her experience and other qualifications. If you’ve got any doubts or questions, why don’t you let her? We think you’ll become a believer.
With that, we throw out this challenge to Ruth Ann: Whether you win or lose, we urge you, some respectable period of time after the election, to switch parties. You say you’re a “Goldwater Republican,” while acknowledging the party has changed both locally and nationally since that label made much sense—or had much of a place under the tent. In fact we were surprised to learn you’re a Republican. (Likely, in our view, it stems less from a youthful infatuation with Barry than as a holdover from the days when, to be taken seriously politically in this state, to be a real player, you pretty much did have to be a Republican. But the times they are a changin’.) And you can switch. You should. You belong as one of us. Be like Reagan: You can say “You didn’t leave the Republican Party … it left you.” Just do it.

Hometown publisher, international profile

2007-07-19T19:28:00.000-06:00

The Midtown Messenger gets a letter printed leading page A13, Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2007

July 10 commentary piece pooh-poohing the furor over the threat Rupert Murdoch's takeover of Dow Jones represents to the Journal's excellence and editorial independence leads this editor to weigh in on the issue

Our letter, those by others, appear above the essay that instigated them. Ours in particular demonstrates that, as an editor ourself, we know how to get a letter published: Flatter the editor of the page, and obliquely disparage his or her right-wing, corporate-toady ass-kissing colleagues across the fold on the editorial page, and the overlords at the top of the masthead. (Note: We didn't write the "Independence Dies ..." headline; they did!)

Independence Dies When a Newspaper Owner Has One Goal—Profit
July 19, 2007; Page A13

Jim Prevor's editorial-page commentary "The Roots of Editorial 'Independence'," July 10, begins with a good premise but draws a conclusion that does not follow. Editorial independence may, in large degree, stem from an editor's willingness to be fired. However, that a publication's owner is for some reason the best guarantor of that independence is a non sequitur. That an owner would hold a publication's credibility uppermost would be the ideal case, from the point of view of editors and most readers.

However, clearly, an owner or publisher considers many things beyond editorial integrity and excellence in his or her decision-making: Currying favor with or not alienating readers, advertisers or policymakers are typically factors that carry weight with owners more than with editors. Whether a board of some kind to insulate editors from the whims, biases or self-interest of an owner is the best solution for Dow Jones, I do not profess to know. But in the specific case of Rupert Murdoch's prospective ownership of the company and of The Wall Street Journal, it seems it is precisely being fired (or interfered with) by him that Journal editors, the Bancroft family, and many members of the public who appreciate the Journal's excellent news coverage if not always its editorial page stances, rightly fear.

David Tell
Editor and Publisher
The Midtown Messenger: News for Phoenix's Historic Districts
Phoenix

Jim Prevor's commentary is a naïve view of the media business and Rupert Murdoch that one can only hope the Bancrofts do not share. He is correct in his assertion that a board designated to protect editorial independence will not work, but his reasoning is seriously flawed.

Reading the New York Post's Page 6 or the The Sun's Page 3 demonstrates the importance of "editorial integrity" to Rupert Murdoch. News Corp. has one goal: profit. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, but let us not kid ourselves into believing that editorial integrity is what sells newspapers.

The Bancrofts must decide to either sell the business and recognize that they will have no say in what goes on at Dow Jones, or keep control of Dow Jones and maintain its editorial reputation. Neither decision is necessarily better than the other, but it is disingenuous to act as if there is any middle ground.

Michael Trachtenberg
Scottsdale, Ariz.

Mr. Prevor's throw-away reference to the tenure of Henry Ford II at the Ford Foundation does a disservice both to Henry II and to the enormous impact he had on the institution his father founded.

Henry II served on the foundation's Board of Trustees for 33 years, both as chairman and president. One of his many great acts of leadership was commissioning a blue-ribbon panel to determine how best the organization could use it vast resources to fulfill its charter. He did this in 1950, already seven years at the helm. The goals he and his fellow trustees unanimously embraced -- reducing poverty, promoting democratic values, striving for peace and building knowledge and understanding -- cleave closely to his father's original vision and remain at the heart of the foundation's mission.

While Henry Ford II did offer incisive, constructive criticism of the foundation at the time he retired in 1977, he also heaped it with praise. "The Foundation already has a magnificent record of achievement," he said. "I'm confident that it is capable of still more significant contributions to the world in the years to come. . . . The future of the foundation is in capable hands."

Marta L. Tellado
Vice President of Communications
Ford Foundation
New York

COMMENTARY

The Roots of Editorial 'Independence'

By JIM PREVOR
July 10, 2007; Page A21

The controversy over the possible sale of Dow Jones and particularly The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. may be predictable, and the efforts of the Bancroft family to maintain the editorial integrity of the publication may be laudable. Yet the complicated negotiations to create a board that would secure editorial independence are a mistake. They misinterpret the nature of editorial independence and miss the point that the owner of a publication is the person most likely to defend its editorial integrity.

Editorial independence is always a function of one thing and one thing only: an editor's willingness to be fired. In his autobiographical book "Making It," Norman Podhoretz, the long-time editor of Commentary magazine, reflected on how he could both have independence as an editor, yet work for a magazine owned by the American Jewish Committee, which had decided interests and opinions:

"The editorial independence which the American Jewish Committee had always granted to Commentary consisted simply in this: no person except the editor or anyone he might voluntarily wish to consult could read articles in advance of publication or could dictate what should or should not appear in the magazine . . . The editor of Commentary, like any chief executive of any operation owned by others, only had as much freedom -- which is to say power -- as he was willing to risk exercising. If he did something he thought right and of which the AJC then disapproved, it was not enough merely to defend himself and hold firmly to his ground; he also had to make certain that he would not be deterred in the future by the fear of similar trouble from taking an action which he believed to be in the best interests of the magazine. There was only one way I or anyone else could be faithful to this principle: I had to be ready at any moment to lose my job. The AJC could fire me at its pleasure; that was its protection against me. My protection against it was my willingness to get fired; the minute I lost that willingness, I would lose my freedom and consequently my power to do the best editorial job I was capable of doing."

All of the mechanisms being discussed as possible ways to maintain editorial independence for The Wall Street Journal in a possible post-Bancroft era are designed to evade this fundamental fact: If the editor in chief of a publication is not willing to lose his job, he will always operate in a manner designed to please those who can assure his employment. The only thing that elaborate mechanisms such as independent committees to hire and fire chief editors, etc., will achieve is changing the names of the people to whom the editor will be subservient.

Now, some would say that Rupert Murdoch is some kind of uniquely sinister force in journalism and they would, in fact, be pleased to see a system set up to make sure that anyone other than him makes the important editorial decisions. Yet the incentive system is such that the owner of a publication, in this case presumptively Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., is the one with the greatest incentive to maintain the publication's reputation.

Readers turn to publications for information and insight on various subjects. If a publication is taken over and is losing money, as in the case of News Corp.'s purchase of the New York Post, the owner may look to change editorial approaches because the old one was not a component of a successful business model. But what is the alternative? Allow an independent board to dictate an editorial approach that does not attract readership and leads to bankruptcy?

A large, reputable and profitable company such as Dow Jones offers a very different set of risks and rewards to an owner. Any attempts to utilize the publication for personal benefit by, for example, talking up friends and attacking enemies, would be greeted with resignations by top editors who refuse to prostitute the editorial content in that way.

These resignations would be widely reported, and the word would quickly get out that readers are being fed propaganda, not news and analysis. This loss of reputation leads to a loss of readership and imposes on the owners an enormous loss of value. So ownership, though perhaps tempted to use editorial coverage to its advantage, has powerful incentives not to do so.

On the other hand, independent, self-perpetuating committees have nothing to lose and so they are not restrained in their actions. Typically, this means the publication will become a bore because the members of the independent board will look to appoint people who are admired by their friends and represent the mainstream viewpoint of their social class.

We should expect that a self-perpetuating board would eventually stray very far from what its founders intended. A good example is the board of directors at major foundations. Henry Ford II felt compelled to resign in disgust from the Ford Foundation explaining that: "In effect, the Foundation is a creature of capitalism, a statement that, I'm sure, would be shocking to many professional staff people in the field of philanthropy. It is hard to discern recognition of this fact in anything the Foundation does. It is even more difficult to find an understanding of this in many of the institutions, particularly the universities, that are the beneficiaries of the Foundation's grant programs."

Publications do not edit themselves, so editors must be hired, and they are always answerable to somebody. Even if the editor happens to own the publication, he is only free to act as he chooses to the extent he is indifferent to the effects of those actions on subscriptions, readership and advertising.

Setting up self-perpetuating boards only serves to switch the names of those the editor is answerable to. A board with a lack of interest in the business success of a publication is unlikely to lead to successful and thus greatly important and influential publications.

This whole exercise of trying to ensure editorial independence is somewhat insulting to the editors of Dow Jones publications, now and in the future, as it implies that they are so desperate for employment that they need to be protected against a demanding or opinionated boss.

Great publications always come from editors on fire with ideas and with a vision for their publication. Their independence comes always and simply from their willingness to be fired. No committee can change that truth.

Mr. Prevor is founder and editor in chief of Phoenix Media Network, Inc.

The Literary Offenses of ... some obscure scribbler

2007-07-14T17:52:00.002-06:00

They say everybody’s a critic. So? Everyone else thinks they’re an author
The case contra on-demand publishing

On the second anniversary of the appearance of this essay in the print publication, we post it here the better for other anal-retentives to bask in its glow and bathe in its delights. Or something like that.

Ahem. Allow me to present Prof. Frumly Lymphschtickenraad, to deliver the latest in his series of lectures on the decline in American letters since Feb. 29, 1997. The professor (whose seminal study of cheese as metaphor in Moldovan literature during the brief post-prandial renaissance of 984 to 1011 we are all familiar with), has in this essay—which he will present with the aid of Ashlee Simpson using a laser pointer to keep him focused on his TelePrompTer—updated Herr Mark Twain’s rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction, which that luminary applied so incisively to the work of Mr. J.F. Cooper. Ms. Simpson—please—no—The laser pointer is only to be used with the briefest of applications to the professor’s sensitive nasal lesions and diaphanous wattle, just to keep him alert—no—no!—please, not in his eyes. OK, then.

Wusses! Have we yet failed to to exorcise, expectorate and scuff into the dust, like a worm, the last castings of the putrid, pusillanimous pastiche of sensibilities and execrable esthetic errors that characterized the ’60s and ’70s? While there is the ages-old maxim, “Dance with the one what brung ya,” must we be Brautigan and again back to this sad and laughable era? What Merry Pranksters have visited this viscid and flaccid “literary” corpse upon us? O exquisite corpse, would that you did not, like wide-gauze-bandaged mummy or pale and ghoulish zombie, visit and revisit yourself upon us, spreading pestilent prose, dusty declamation, and chalky snowblindness upon those who would gaze upon your papery raiment?
Well. Let us now, for the purposes of our elucidation, distill the illustrious Prof. Twain’s 19 or so rules governing the art of fiction to a mere two or three:

Do not, unless with artful skill and satiric intent, sully sublime notions, vulgarize eternal mysteries, excrete on the ethereal essences.
Do not depict chemically-altered psychic excursions, or physic ecstasies, unless with clarity of vision and dextrousness of narration that would suffice to suggest why the depraved seek (yet, paradoxically, fear) these debased states.
If, indeed, you are authentically acquainted first-hand with these states, would you, nonetheless, mind terribly refraining from writing whilst in them?
Employ your language of choice in such manner as to avoid boring or repulsing the reader.

(OK, four.)
Here, we assess the literary efforts of one Henry Wingfield; and, to adumbrate our conclusion, we find that H.W., a fervid if not continuously employed massage therapist, ought reserve the laying on of his hands, not to the alphabetic keyboard, but to the human or (if also a pet masseur) animalian corpus. H.W., having graduated in his literary output from a book relatively blank and at least inoffensive in its austerity (Imagine Art) to one busy, verily squirming, with words, ought to be sent back a grade.
The subsequent tome is notable. It is remarkable. It is even admirable (if one admires crime consistently, predictably and reliably committed) in the breaking of at least two of the four foregoing rules in nigh every paragraph of H.W.’s novel Ancient Lovers—and of all four on virtually every page! Multiple times, in many instances.
Synoptically, we describe the book as mucking about in the notion of “past lives”—as far as we can tell. Apparently, in the main, modern phase of the novel, certain antiquated paramours’ spirits dwell or manifest in the embarrassingly juicy and concupiscent flesh of modern humans, who, without prior contemporary acquaintance, then justify their hedonistic couplings—not to mention their nostalgic gazings one into another’s eyes—by their ineradicable and soulfully “deep” connection across time and space. (A process and a connection, we venture, not unlike when VP search committee chief Cheney became George Walker Bush’s vice-presidential running mate Dick.)

How do these fallible figures know they have this connection? Via one of the most clumsily banal faults of the book (and, simultaneously, one of the most egregious violations of Rule Number One - or Two - or Four): They see it (among other things) in each other’s eyes, as if watching a movie in said orbs:

Pedro and Abby sat next to each other. They held hands. Pedro turned and fell into Abby’s eyes. This time she concocted the results. It was mesmerizing. Pedro again sat hypnotized, entranced. Almost a minute passed, but what Pedro saw he knew lapsed back 2100 years. He blinked and withdrew his stare from Abby, expounding, “It is absolutely, spellbindingly unbelievable to me. I have no other way to express it. I do not understand it. What I just saw was us—you and me—but we were different people in a different time, in a different place, and we were lovers. I knew that. In fact, we were together as a couple. I want to say “married,” but I know we were not because they did not have that back then, and somehow I just know that. I do not believe this is a form of reincarnation, although I do believe in reincarnation. This is something else. I am watching a movie of ancient times in your eyes, and we are the actors. I see myself in the form of some other body with what appears to be a burlap sack on my body as clothing. I might be 15 years of age, but I feel older. You are plain and yet stunning because I love you so much. Your complexion is olive and your eyes are different than what I see now, but they are just as beautiful. You are so gentle and full of love—new love fresh with every breath. You are very happy. You might be 13 or older. Can I go back there again?” Abby, quickly with sincerity, “Not now. We should go back to the clinic. Will you take me? I need to rest. We’ll explore again soon.”

Pedro, “Of course. How insensitive of me. You must make those arrangements.” pp. 28-29

Contrary to supposition, Abby and Pedro are not engaged in a brief constitutional during a furlough off the grounds of an inpatient mental health sanitarium. But nor, whatever other purposes it serves, is this necessarily a fitting paragraph to hold up against the harsh requirements of the rules of fiction-writing. For, whatever errors and gaffes, lamenesses and atonalities might appear in it, who is to say Mr. Wingfield did not knowingly intend his speakers to sound thus, in a subtle exposition of their particular foibles?
No, it is in the narrative and descriptive stretches of Mr. Wingfield’s writing that we can most instructively apply the rules. Such a segment may be found on virtually any page of the book; we marveled at these paragraphs found as early as page 13, at the beginning of the second chapter:

Abby and Stephan, her husband, had been vacationing in Central America since January 1st, 1997. Their jeep overturned January 22nd in Guatemala, and Stephan was killed They were madly in love with one another and shared a bountiful life together, but had no children. Abby did not know the long-range ramifications of what was about to transpire with this dreadful, fatal single-car accident.
Abby suffered a broken leg, cuts and bruises and a concussion. She was transported to Callebocca, Guatemala, on the east coast near the Caribbean Sea to a small public medical clinic. She was unconscious for five days while under Pedro’s care and supervision. He took an unusually special interest in Abby. Something touched him with her beauty. He could somehow see a past life from deep inside her eyes. Pedro checked them every day for consciousness or awareness, but instead saw into her past like a movie flashing before his eyes. He recognized a main character as himself in someone else’s body It was, in fact, a movie he was watching inside Abby’s eyes. He was fascinated by this, not freaked out or scared. He fell deeper into the plot, but really did not know where it was going.

Here let us digress a scoche, and refer to Herr Twain’s Rule 9 as applied to Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, one of those of which the four above are a distillation: “The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.” Foremost among the remarkable things in the above paragraph is that Pedro was “not freaked out or scared.” So often this is the dilemma in popular entertainment: that in the face of unworldly experience that no one would at first believe—all the evidence of their senses notwithstanding—how credulous to make the protagonist? We do not yet know or care enough about Pedro to feel relief that he is not “freaked out or scared”—but in truth, do we believe it? Here is a man who is dutifully tending a patient in a prolonged swoon, and checking her eyes for awareness or consciousness, and it’s like he’s a kid at Harkins in 1966, kicked back, watching “One Million Years B.C.”
On points more mundane—but, in their pervasiveness, equally grave—Rule 4 of our abridged set finds ample play. To begin, writing with good English requires avoiding clichés, as well as empty, gushy descriptives lacking in concreteness and specificity. (To its credit, the Moldovan tongue and literary canon also support these virtues.) Note the number of words and phrases violating this prescriptive in this brief passage: “madly in love,” “bountiful life,” “about to transpire,” “care and supervision,” “like a movie flashing before his eyes,” “freaked out,” “fell deeper.”
Too, Mr. Wingfield seems much in haste to get wherever it is he is going—maybe to the “movies” of the sex scenes, ja?—rather than attend to basic matters of the storyteller’s art: painting the setting, imagery—concrete specifics—that would place us in the characters’ world, and in turn, keep them from resembling Punch and Judy animated by a drunken puppeteer. We learn merely that the star-crossed couple were “vacationing” “in Central America,” that their jeep overturned “in a dreadful, fatal single-car accident.” It might further the verisimilitude of the tale to know something about how they were spending their vacation, and, especially, what they were doing that resulted in the tragic upending of their Jeep. Were they miles beyond ordinary, enjoying a few Coronas? Did the flash of a bright-plumed macaw or menacing jagular catch Stephan’s eye and cause him, mortally, to swerve? Was Abby engaged unseemly with the gear shifter? Sadly, we do not know.
On additional inspection, the generally clumsy, cluttered stacking up of words without care for sound, sense or meaning grates on the reader throughout the passage. For example, that Abby “did not know the long-range ramifications of what was to transpire” should surprise us so little as to require no mention, as we had not been previousy advised that she possessed any extraordinary faculty of prescience.
To say she “suffered” “a broken leg, cuts and bruises and a concussion” comes off as a mere statistic, as Herr Twain would say. It reads as if quoted from the clinic’s chart, not the imagination’s tabula rasa. Truly she may have “suffered,” and from the broken leg most of all, yet it is only in the academic sense that the word is used, i.e., as in “sustained a copious bleeding from the ears.” Cuts and bruises, and a broken leg—Oh my!
Abby was “transported” to Calleboca, about whose geographical situating we learn much; while about the particulars of her life-threatening trip thence, nothing. “She was unconscious five days while under Pedro’s care and supervision.” Do we here detect the suggestion of a causal connection, so that when Pedro relinquished her care and supervision to another practitioner, her condition improved? (If so, Pedro, at least, took not only a special interest in Abby (in her vulnerable state), but an “unusually special interest.” Hmmm. Nurse, please remain in the room at all times.)
Here’s our favorite: “Something touched him with her beauty.” Now, we all know what Wingfield here means. But that is not his fault. It’s due only to our toleration for syntactical impreciseness, as veteran language users, that we understand him. We take him to mean, “In some indefinable way, her beauty touched him.” And so he should have put it. Or, it could be as simple a fix as by the choice and placement of preposition; viz.: “Something in her beauty touched him.” Or: “He was touched by her beauty.” As it reads on the page, however (“Some thing [nom., subject] touched [v.t.] him [d.o.] with [i.e., “using,” “with the instrumentality of”] her beauty.”), it is as if something—perhaps a wandering howler monkey—somehow actually held Abby’s beauty in its simian grasp, and poked (or merely stroked) Pedro with it, as if with a leafy tree-limb. Clearly, as an abstract, even Ideal-partaking Platonic form informing and infusing the substance of Abby’s human visage, her “beauty” is not something to be bandied about like a stick in such manner. So one should not write as if it was.
Too, not only should the writer stick to the possible, or at least dabble in rendering the improbable plausible—he should avoid the use of such fake and facile realism-intensifiers as “in fact,” “literally” and suchlike clichés, reminding ourselves anyway that they are mental placeholders serving largely to give thinking a holiday. “He recognized a main character as himself in someone else’s body. It was, in fact, a movie he was watching inside Abby’s eyes.” (Emphasis reluctantly added.)
First, a hint please, as to how Pedro “recognized a main character as himself in someone else’s body”? —We are not being coy. Please make something up—anything: a tic, a certain leer of lip, a piebaldness, or one eye being a different colour than the other—to justify and explain how he recognized himself in someone else’s body; not a regular occurrence, after all.
Then, no matter how sincerely Mr. Wingfield wants us to believe Pedro’s experience is like watching a movie play in Abby’s eyes, let us not abandon and deny the essential artifice of simile and insist there is literal cinema-going going on here. For I doubt Mr. Wingfield envisions a little film projector—nor even a tiny iPod Photo—perched on Abby’s nose, or hidden inside a sinus or tear duct or Eustachian tube, “in fact” projecting a movie in her eyes there for Pedro to see. No, no matter how much he would like to indulge—sloppily, incoherently, and impossibly—to the contrary, there are no such miniature movie projectors in the jungle (or on the coast) of Guatemala. Nor is there sufficient bio-mechanical expertise in that largely agrarian economy to implant such technology and operate it—much less maintain it. Nor did they have the filmmaking equipment “way back then” to make the movies now “in fact” playing in Abby’s eyes ... in the time, as if in ancient Greece, that the original souls lived and loved under the moonilght by the wine-dark sea, la-de-doo-dah (just like they “didn’t have marriage” then, either). (Well, OK: Maybe gay marriage.)
— D. Tell

Editor’s note: The foregoing is loosely—maybe feebly—modeled on two classic, hilarious essays by Mark Twain on the “literary offenses of Fenimore Cooper.” The first of them may be found online at users.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/ cooper.html. We also advise our readers that Henry Wingfield, as a good sport, agreed to see a review published that took this tack. Still, fortunately for Cooper, perhaps, he had established his literary fame and reputation—and had been dead for over 40 years—before Twain published his calumnies. (And, as it turned out, Wingfield was not so sanguine after seeing the published review.)
Ancient Lovers can be ordered from Xlibris, 1-888-795-4274, www.xlibris.com, orders@xlibris.com.

The things you'd never know if it were up to our local MSM

2007-04-30T14:06:00.000-06:00

Bond campaign loses $1.3M suit
‘Building Our Future’ committee ran illegal ads, says Superior Court judge

By David Tell, Messenger editor

From the April 16 issue of The Midtown Messenger

Last year’s city bond proposal proved fairly controversial for a ballot item the details and general thrust of which tended to have a “my-eyes-glaze-over” quality. Still, when you’re borrowing and spending more than $800 million that city taxpayers will have to pay back, there are folks who want to see all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed on everyone’s behalf.
En route to doing so, one set of watchdogs last fall won a $1.3 million judgment against the political committee, Building Our Future, set up to promote the bond proposal. Superior Court Judge Michael D. Jones agreed with the plaintiffs that the committee had clearly violated state law governing required disclosures in its ads and signs touting the bond, and, per statute, awarded plaintiffs three times the amount spent on the illegal advertising.
With the city’s and state’s main mass-circulation daily paper, The Arizona Republic, closely tied to downtown power interests and thus largely mute if not an outright cheerleader on many such matters, it was the feisty folks at the Cave Creek weekly the Sonoran News who gave the bond proposal a needed critical eye. That coverage was what led to the lawsuit, as the reporter was goaded to action not only by the resistance and red tape she encountered complaining about the problematic ads, but also by the blowback she received as she began to publish her findings.
Linda Bentley, at the paper since 2001 (her entire journalistic career), was the reporter responsible for some well-researched articles on the bond that pulled no punches either in body or headline.
An article in the Feb. 8 - 14, 2006 issue began to look at the apparent advertising violations under A.R.S. (Arizona Revised Statutes) § 16-912.01. The story was headlined “Phoenix blows off campaign advertising violations” with a subhead “Mayor pimps for propositions,” and it outlined apparent violations of disclosures (when even present) as inadequate in text size, and more importantly, failing to identify, as required, the top four financial donors to the bond campaign effort.

Lawsuit Is Less Meaningful Redress
The article also detailed the reporter’s frustration with the labyrinthine route she followed attempting to find out who might be responsible for enforcing compliance on the committee as to its advertising.
That’s a key point, because, as plaintiff’s attorney Carol Lynn de Szendeffy said, “If you don’t enforce [the statute’s requirements] prior to the election, what good is the election?” Good enough to get the bond passed, clearly—but fallen well short as to the public’s right to know who was behind the huge bill they’ll be footing.
Statute seeks to mandate the disclosure of that information so that citizens might get some insight into who potentially stands to benefit from the money to be spent.
“All these companies stand to gain big contracts,” Bentley said in an interview. “Promises have been made, I would think.”
Among the seven propositions that made up the overall bond are a number of spending items for neighborhoods and historic preservation.
Even in the cases where the donors were disclosed, Bentley found, the identifications were often inaccurate. For the most part, the ads “weren’t disclosing who was funding the campaign,” Bentley said. One funder was “Macerich Corp., parent company of [Phoenix-based shopping center developer] Westcor. They had just purchased Westcor. [Macerich] only became a foreign corporation in Arizona the day before the election, weren’t allowed to do business in the state until a day before the election,” she said. The company contributed $50,000.
“If one of your highest funding sources is from out of state, you have to disclose that as well. They didn’t do that even, cited Westcor as a top funder,” Bentley said. “All the advertising that says Westcor is incorrect.” If seemingly a technicality, the identification mixup applies only to ads that contained the disclosure; as stated, many if not most did not, at least at first.

Proponents ‘Buying the Election’
“My interest in becoming a plaintiff [emerged as it became] very blatantly obvious that they were buying this election,” Bentley said.
“I covered it prior to filing the lawsuit; I filed a complaint when I saw they had illegal advertising; [then City Clerk] Vicky Miel said they forwarded it on to the city attorney. But the advertising continued on” in violation, Bentley said. “They just thought they were going to blow me off.”
Energized, Bentley said she “went thought their campaign finance report, which was mumbo jumbo—did they put all their receipts in a shoebox and shake it? I think they did it the way they did to keep people from being able to understand it, see dates and the order of donations and expenditures. I sorted it out, put it in a spreadsheet.”
One of the committee’s defenses about absent disclosures was that they thought yard signs could be categorized with campaign promotional items such as pen, pencils and buttons, which are obviously too small to contain much printed information. Judge Jones laughed that one out of court, writing “The enumerated [exempted] items in the statute are all quite small in actual size. Although a yard sign is small in comparison to a billboard advertisement, it would be a stretch to place it in the same category as the other items listed within the statute under this ‘small item exemption,’ such as buttons, pens and bumper stickers. A yard sign would have more in common with other sign advertisements and billboards, which clearly are not included in this list of exceptions. Thus, reason compels me to conclude that the yard signs are not ‘small items’ and are not exempt from the disclosure requirement.”

Defense ‘Tortures’ Law’s Meaning
The statute also requires that disclosure be in a size as the majority of the text in the advertisement. The committee, in an attempt to comply after being notified of disclosure deficiencies, went around putting stickers containing disclosures on signs, in fine print, at a word length purporting to make the disclosure itself the majority of the text. That didn’t fly with the judge either.
“Defendant argues that, because the disclosure contains more words than the main text of the ad, the disclosure itself constitutes the majority of the printed text. This interpretation leads to the absurd result that BOF’s disclosure could be virtually any size, as the disclosure will always be as large as itself,” Judge Jones wrote. “Such an interpretation tortures the plain meaning of the statute.”
It’s not that the city did nothing in response to Bentley’s complaint, though they may have dragged their feet even when she found the right channels to go through. Larry Felix, an attorney in the Law Department, said he did advise the committee that Bentley was correct in the complaints she was pressing.

City: We Told Them to Cut It Out
“We did get complaints filed with us about the advertising, and we directed the people to make some corrections. The opinion pretty much agrees with what we told the people,” Felix said. He added that he did not advise the committee they could satisfy the text size requirement by adding words in the disclosure. ‘We never said that; we said if you put the stickers on, they had to have the proper size of the text. We never felt that the disclosure language could be considered when determining what size text had to be used.”
In a subsequent article, Bentley questioned proponents’ assertion that the bond would not raise taxes, and argued that it was padded with projects for favored entities elevated above others in what would otherwise be a competitive grantmaking or prioritized budgeting process. She was not the only one making such allegations; in fact she quoted, among others, Ahwatukee activist Greta Rogers, who in this paper’s Viewpoints section argued that the bond was improperly seeking to fund the capital projects of a variety of non-profit groups. Others objected to the inclusion of ASU’s downtown campus—state-level facilities—in the funds. “Friends of ASU” was one of the top four donors to the campaign, at $34,500.
“I’m not surprised that [the violations and lawsuit] happened,” Rogers said. “The [lack of ] oversight that goes on down there [at City Hall] in very many cases—many more than this—nobody’s brought to their attention by using the legal system.” She said the city in its size and complexity has outgrown the skills of City Manager Frank Fairbanks, whom she called a legacy employee whose father worked in City Hall before him, she believes.
Rogers said what surprised her was that she hadn’t seen report of the suit and the award; then she corrected herself, saying Republic reporters “are kept on a short leash.”
As for city management in general and the bond campaign in particular, “Former Mayor Paul Johnson was the chairman of the executive bond committee; he and [Mayor] Phil Gordon are like Mutt and Jeff but two peas in a pod,” Rogers said. “I read in the paper this morning that Gordon’s going to have a new executive assistant. He [previously] got George Weiss, who got it after [Gordon’s former chief of staff and Sky Harbor Administrator David] Krietor was bumped up to the 12th floor; [Weiss] has been a political hack at the state and city, he just bounces from one place to the other. [Former Deputy City Manager and now Gordon’s new Deputy Chief of Staff Ray] Bladine, he was executive assistant to Johnson. I thought, ‘Isn’t this just cuter than kids in nursery school.’”
Johnson chaired the bond campaign, and he said he “was involved” in promoting the bond, “but not in this issue [remedying the deficient disclosures].”
He said the committee’s attorney Andrew Gordon, or a campaign consultant named Gary Casa, would be best able to respond to any questions.

Disclosure, Message Vie for Space?
“The only issue that was given to us during that period, via Andy Gordon [was], if what they were requesting was true, three-quarters or one-half of your sign would have your disclosure and you wouldn’t have room for your message. If that was the case, you couldn’t get your message out,” Johnson said. “It was a free speech issue; he was very exercised about it.”
Johnson said the law is complicated and thus difficult to comply with but that he understands its ultimate point, that for voters, “The one issue is the public disclosure” in properly understanding possible agendas behind raising and spending public monies.
Judge Jones in his ruling found that under a variety of precedents, the “state interest” in providing voters with pertinent disclosures outweighed alleged free speech issues, and that the statute’s disclosure requirements are sufficiently “narrowly tailored” in upholding that interest to be constitutional.
Gordon did not return a call seeking comment.

Us, Comply? No One Else Had to
Jones’ ruling has been appealed to the state Court of Appeals; “Basically they want to challenge the constitutionality” on free speech grounds, de Szendeffy said. In her view, in his ruling, “Judge Jones goes through each point they raised and addresses it. They were grabbing at straws. Judge Jones’ opinion is very succinct and does a good job of explaining what the law is. One of their arguments was actually ‘They shouldn’t have to comply with the law because nobody did before.’”
On that point, Bentley said the suit was the first test of the statute, revised in 2001; de Szendeffy wasn’t sure of that. But again, the suit after the fact and its remedies skirt the real issue, which is that the election could have gone the other way if promoted fairly. De Szendeffy provided an example of a previous instance, where the County Attorney’s Office sued the campaign committee “Yes on 400” to gain their compliance on disclosures during the 2006 campaign for that initiative, among many placed on the statewide ballot last year.
De Szendeffy believes in this case it should have been up to the City Attorney’s Office to better secure compliance on advertising a city ballot proposition, and she wrote not only to Felix (and Paul Johnson) but to Felix’s boss, City Attorney Gary Verburg, seeking that they proactively enforce the statute on the bond committee. Only when they did not did the lawsuit ensue.
Bentley said, as the real remedy, she feels the election result should have been overturned.
As for Bentley’s role as a plaintiff, journalistic ethics looks askance at a reporter becoming part of the story they’re covering. Granted, Arizona is home to a number of editors and publishers who have become prominent activists on their soapbox issues as journalists. A ready example is Chris Simcox, editor and publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, who has helped spearhead the anti-illegal immigration Minutemen group. The cover tagline of the Sonoran News is “The Conservative Voice of Arizona,” and perusal of a recent issue also showed much of its editorial hole occupied with articles concerning the hot-button illegal immigration issue.
For Bentley, covering a case she’d decided to get involved in was a practical necessity on a paper the size of hers, which has only one other reporter, she said. And her involvement had the publisher’s blessing.
As for her general activist and muckraking credentials, Bentley said she wasn’t really a rabble-rouser prior to becoming a reporter. “I used to write a letter to the editor now and then, engaged in a lawsuit against Army of Corps of Engineers” but was by no means a serial litigator, she said. Prior to joining the Sonoran News, “I ran a general contracting company and did tilesetting,” Bentley said. As a citizen and a journalist, her interest is “pretty much [in] the rule of law. I gave the information [on the advertising violations] to the city, they got to continue advertising illegally; the only way to stop it is to sue them.”
Bentley said she tried to interest others in bringing the suit. “What you find out, most people, you give them the information, they just don’t know what to do. There’s only so much time you have in your life, you can give them the information, but they want you to fix it for them too. I see something corrupt, I want to fix it,” she said. “A police officer comes across something wrong in the course of his duties, he doesn’t want to look the other way.”

‘Pretty Cut and Dried’ Case
When she began considering bringing the legal action herself, she got advice that said anyone could bring suit, but that she needed to find an attorney outside of Phoenix: “Not far outside, but you’re not going to get anyone in the city to touch it,” Bentley said she was told. “I showed it to Carol, she thought it looked pretty cut and dried; said she would take it on contingency.”
She said she also asked her friend Rusty Childress, owner of Childress Buick-Kia and an activist formerly on Proposition 200 and other issues, if he was willing to be a plaintiff. “I didn’t want them to bring up standing” for lack of a city plaintiff in the suit, she said.

After Threats, Got a Gun Permit
As a measure of the interests at stake, after her first article on the bond was published, “I started getting death threats,” Bentley said. “I had an idea who it might be, I still have the recordings. After I got the first death threat, I got a concealed carry permit” for a handgun. She said she received a second threat on her voice mail while at the Ben Avery Center off Highway 74 practicing with her gun, the day after her second story on the bond appeared.
Bentley said she believes she knows the source of the threats; “however, I can’t prove it. A friend sent me a recording; the guy did a radio interview, my friend e-mailed me a recording and I listened to it and the hair on the back of my neck stood up—he phrased his sentences the same way.”
Bentley said she complained to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, which investigated. “Voice print matching isn’t as sophisticated as I thought it was, they couldn’t rule him out, couldn’t rule him in either,” Bentley said. “The detective said he tried to get them to say some of the same things [as were said in the threats to her, but was unsuccessful].”
The first threat, she said, was “Hey, Linda, you better grow some eyes behind your fucking head because you’re not going to live to see next month.” The second went “What’s up, you fuckin’ whore? I’m watching you. It’s Thursday around three and we have our eyes on you, you fuckin’ whore. You’re gonna die.”
Not only did her superiors support her lawsuit, “Actually, my boss said he was jealous because he’d never received a death threat. John Dougherty from New Times said ‘Those look great on a resume,’” Bentley wrote in an e-mail. She said the threats stopped after she detailed them in an article.
As for the lack of awareness within the city of the bond campaign violations and the successful lawsuit, Bentley blames the Republic’s dismissiveness. (The Midtown Messenger was alerted to the lawsuit by another critic of the bond.) Republic reporter “Monica Alonzo Dunsmoor kind of mentioned it when we filed it,” Bentley said. But after they won, Dunsmoor refused to do another article or was handcuffed by an editor, she said. “They’re a propaganda mill,” she said of the Republic.
David Tell, holder of a concealed weapon carry permit since 2004, was his class’s winner for excellence in both the classroom and field (marksmanship) phases of his training course. And that was back when refresher training was still required every four years to keep the permit and the burden of proof was still on the person using deadly force in self-defense. (In this statement, he’s not trying to warn or intimidate, much less challenge, any potential threateners—he’s just bragging about how well he still does back in school.)

New England native scores in Valley music scene

2007-02-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

Matt Beem approached us about reviewing his latest CD. It was a pleasure. Posted here because his local gig is too close to the print date of the issue carrying the review to necessarily help generate some attendance. God willing, a miracle may happen and downtown hipsters may log on here and follow up on the tip to go listen to this guy, at Modified Arts, Wednesday, Feb. 21 at the Paper Heart with Down Cast Fabel (other acts TBA), thepaperheart.com.

You criticize the note in his ear when there’s a Beem in your own?

By David Tell, critic
extraordinaire

From the very first signature guitar licks of the opening track on Matt Beem’s new CD “The Part You’re Playing, you feel as if it’s already familiar. That’s even truer as you go about your day, unable to get “ Starting to Crack” out of your head. It’s pretty catchy. (Almost too much so. Hard to resist cracks about “head starting to crack ...”) That’s true of the rest of the CD too, as well as past work by Beem, a childhood drummer who evolved into a guitarist-singer-songwriter and from a N’Hampshah rock star wannabe to whatever passes for mild success at it in the Valley’s music scene.
We’re not up enough on recent rock genres and icons (Beem refers to “jangle band” and “folk-metal” in characterizing some phases of his career) to informedly assess his influences and sound-alikes, but we can say the music manifests a tunefulness and dogged beat (as well as intelligent, clearly enunciated, irony-soaked lyrics) that help explain why he’s been a crowd-pleaser in some circles for several years locally—without the need for gimmicks such as the neo-Turkish riffs of bands such as the Hypno-Twists, reviewed here what seems like ages ago. (Get it from Mozart’s “Zaide,” and “Rondo alla Turca,” leave it out of rock, eh, guys and gals?)
Revealing my age, ignorance and tastes, I will say there’s a hint here of early Crazy Horse (Jack Nitzche, et. al., accompanying Neil Young in the early “Neil Young” and “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” days—even the unjustly obscure “On the Beach,” which I think Ryan Adams said was an influence), Sheryl Crow’s backup musicians, and perhaps Western rockers whose stuff I’m not really too familiar with such as Warren Zevon and John Mellencamp, with a some of the parody and energy of the Stones when emulating U.S.-born musical styles—think stuff from “Some Girls” and whatever their even more mock-Country album was ...
Beem started his local career in a band with a brother of a guy in the Gin Blossoms, who he says gave up on them “because they were a bunch of nitwits”—then formed Solace, who became Long Wong’s house band before dissolving.
Then, according Beem, “I completed my first official release, ‘Choking Down the Roses,’ sparse renditions of new and old tunes, which gave birth to several crowd favorites, including ‘Valley Sickness,’ ‘Relatively,’ and ‘Dolphins Don’t Build Casinos.’ In 2002 I started a new outfit with drummer Matthew Salusky (formerly of local hardcore groups Longsuffer and Kilnemia), this time performing under my name, and recorded the ‘12/09/02’ EP, acoustic demos of new songs that would eventually be recorded by the full band for my next release, ‘The Way These People Drive, You’d Think They Want Me Dead.’ (2003) The band chugged along for a couple of years, went through several lineup changes, and eventually the thing fizzled out. I spent 2005 writing new songs and in ’06 enlisted local drummer and producer Brock Caldwell to put together the latest release, ‘The Part You’re Playing’ EP.”
As to that release, following the infectious “Starting to Crack,” there’s the mock-mournful “Spanish Girl,” which is ballad-with-a-beat stuff; “Everything Seen,” which mimics (not intentionally, we know) the frenetic pace and style of the aforementioned Stones in “Shattered,” their punk-y, Ramones-y paean to the New York rat-race (we referenced the lyric “Can’t give it away on 7th Avenue” in our headline on the Bowey rezoning flap a couple years ago, remember?). “The Fan” again builds on a spare lead guitar riff into a plaintive, fetching anthem; “Theresa” harks to the arpeggiated oldie love songs and other standards such as “House of the Rising Sun” (and, again Sheryl Crow takes on the style such as “Run Baby Run” and “No One Said It Would Be Easy”), and is perhaps a less original, and, to my taste, less enjoyable offering.
Representing the Myspace generation, music impresario extraordinaire Naomi Tell, who sampled the CD in Grand Rapids before her sound card died (was Beem’s music the culprit?), commented, “I did think it had a kind of soulfulness that most alternative-mainstream sounding rock is lacking these days. Damn kids. He also looks like [boyfriend] Jeremy's friend Ronnie.”
“Desert Eagle” rounds out the set, echoing early somebody else, another minor-key bio-ballad telling a road-trip tale. About ending up in Phoenix. I can relate.
More of Beem’s stuff can be listened to or downloaded free from his website, mattbeem.com. It’s all listenable, check it out. And/or catch him locally (see infobox, previous page).

Ruth Ann Marston seeks Dist. 7 Council seat

2007-02-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

We ordinarily would wait a week or two following its cover date to post a story from our print edition. But rather than get scooped, and since, delivery personnel being out of town, the bulk distribution of the paper may be a little late this month, here's the breaking news—already a couple weeks old, actually, as of the posting date—but as far as we know, it hasn't been carried elsewhere ... yet.

Midtowner to vie in Dist. 7
Seeking Council seat when Lingner exits, Marston cites big credentials

By David Tell, Messenger editor

In a field that is growing almost as crowded as the race for the Democratic nomination for president, one of Midtown’s own has thrown her hat in the ring to succeed Doug Lingner on City Council in District 7.
Ruth Ann Marston is a longtime Willo resident and educator who retired from the Phoenix Elementary School District No. 1 a few years ago. She is now in her second term on its governing board, as its president. She also leads the loosely organized Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods Coalition, as well as serving as president of the Central Arizona Chapter of the Arizona Historical Society. Supplicants for rezonings and their opponents also are familiar with her reasoned statements and actions as part of the Encanto Village Planning Committee, of which she is a past chair.
While all these offices and accomplishments position her well for support from within the urban-historic end of District 7, Marston acknowledges that a key task will be introducing herself to residents and organizations in the bulk of the district, which wends through southwest Phoenix.
Despite the fact that Midtown’s historic neighborhoods represent only a small portion of District 7 both geographically and demographically, Councilman Doug Lingner has been a staunch supporter of historic neighborhood and preservation issues. Election of Marston could be expected to only enlarge that support and awareness.
To get acquainted with the rest of the district, “I plan to do a lot of walking and meeting people,” Marston said. But she said she’s not unknown in the southwest part of the city. “I have contacts in the west and southwest valley through the work on the planning committee where I’ve been a member for 10 years. So I’ve been active in planning and zoning issues, particularly when people have tried to break zoning rules, or go around the system so zoning was not predictable—and when they take opportunities for personal self-aggrandizement instead of helping the whole valley develop.”
As an example, “I was active keeping people from building very dense developments around 75th Avenue and I-10. Light rail is going in there and there will be a park and ride lot. Developers were planning to break through the industrial zoning south of the freeway to build very dense industrial housing in areas that would be surrounded by big trucks,” Marston said. She pointed out that seven of the city’s 15 or so village planning subunits are in whole or part in District 7; thus the district’s representative’s reach and sphere of concern is quite broad, in virtue of his or her role in making appointments to the respective planning committees.
She added her service on the school board gives her contacts in school systems throughout the valley.
As for reaching out to the Hispanic constituents in the district, “I’ve taken Spanish classes”; she speaks “porquito, no mas.” She said she spoke Spanish more fluently when she was a school principal and the skill was called upon more often.
Marston said the idea of running for Council had “been growing on me as I’ve watched the city become interested in reinventing itself through education. I’m a lifelong educator. I can see that there are gaps in the city’s effort. Having the university downtown is great, but unless the rest of the educational system support it and kids come to those programs ready, it will be less effective. Having children come from somewhere else is not as useful to Phoenix.”
Marston said access to downtown schools by the city’s own residents involves “being prepared to be successful, and second, to be able to afford to be successful,” she said. “There are a lot of kids in the downtown area whose parents can’t support them through college, they’re going to need ways to work their way through and I don’t think we’ve addressed that adequately.”
Would the inevitable attention to additional city and constituent concerns dilute Marston’s ability to serve the historic end of the district and its issues? “I don’t think it’s a question of dilution. I think things are complementary,” she said. “The historic district supports the whole culture of the city of Phoenix. It’s very important to preserve the historic area itself. Just having a bunch of people living in proximity doesn’t constitute a city. A city is the sum of the past and its future aspirations. It’s important to know what we’ve been in order to build on it. It is absolutely true that you’re doomed to repeat the past if you forget it.
“People don’t move to Phoenix because there’s a lot of dirt,” Marston said, acknowledging that it’s partly the climate that draws them. But they also move here “because of the ambiance, the way they’re treated and opportunities that are available. The opportunities are largely due to foresight of people in the past, on, for example, water conservation and infrastructure. You can move your car in Phoenix, not like LA or Chicago. People have thought ahead in terms of larger infrastructure and we need to continue to think ahead, have that kind of foresight.”
At the same time, “Phoenix needs to be developed for livability, for sustainable growth—and not only for immediate profitability,” she said. “What really needs to happen—I’m a great believer in collective wisdom. We need to have substantial agreement about how Phoenix will grow. It needs to be detailed, especially at the neighborhood and village level. We have to insist on it. We can’t let [personal] gain on the part of an individual or group change the opportunity for sustained livable growth.”
In a field in which other contenders have already announced and in some cases garnered important endorsements, how does Marston see her chances? She points to her two wins in school board elections: “In 2002, I got 38.24 percent of the vote in a field of five candidates and two write-ins, in a vote-for-two situation. For ’06, I got 44.2 percent of the vote in field of three. You know how hard school board races can be fought. Knowing that you have a chance of winning is part of the thing about making your decision about whether to run.”
Marston also said she was more inclined to run when attorney Harry Keidan agreed to be her campaign manager. She said as she is a Republican and he’s a Democrat, that broadens her outreach to the district's voters and people of influence.
Given that Council races are officially nonpartisan, and the rest of her record and profile, she doesn’t expect party affiliation to be a factor overall, nor as to her support within Midtown, where the voter registration tilts slightly Democratic, unlike most of the state. She says she became a Republican during Sen. Barry Goldwater’s heyday, and has toyed with switching parties, as District 4 Councilman Tom Simplot recently did following the November elections. “Many of us are questioning our party affiliation, because it doesn’t mean what it did when we registered,” she said. But she resists switching camps at the moment, acknowledging it would be seen as patently opportunistic. “It would be obviously self-serving. The only reason at this time would be the candidacy, and no one would believe it” to be motivated by principle. She said party registration aside, Midtown “doesn’t’ necessarily vote Democratic. It shouldn’t be a disadvantage.”
Others who have thrown their hats in the District 7 ring include Michael Nowakowski, Laura Pastor, Dustin Steiger, Santos Chavez and Troy Price. Look for coverage later in the campaign season that provides more information on all the viable candidates.

Archaeologist: 'Apocalypto' more or less accurate

2007-01-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

New York Times essay supports our critical deconstruction of Gibson film

In our film review (find link at right), we judged the film a depiction of the clash between the Mayan "Taker" culture (hierarchical, monoculture-based oppressor civilization) and indigenous, forest-based "Leaver" tribes (nomadic, hunter-gatherer types observing a sustainable lifestyle).

Read article on NYT website

Op-Ed Contributor

A Past That Makes Us Squirm

By CRAIG CHILDS

Published: January 2, 2007

Crawford, Colo.

A FEW years back, while traveling in the Sierra Madre Occidental of northern Mexico, I came upon a canyon packed with cliff dwellings no one had lived in since before the time of Christopher Columbus. On the ground were discarded artifacts, pieces of frayed baskets, broken pottery and hundreds of desiccated corn cobs — the ruins of an ancient civilization.

I reached down to pick up what I thought was a dry gourd, and instead found myself cradling the skull of a human child. As I turned it in my hands, I noticed a deliberate hole in the back of the skull, directly above the spine. The skull was not cracked around the hole, which means the child had most likely been alive when a spike or some other implement had been slammed into his or her head from behind.

This is not the only skull like this. Excavations from elsewhere in northern Mexico have turned up other children killed the same way, human sacrifices to an ancient water deity, their bodies buried under pre-Columbian ball courts or at the foot of pillars in important rooms.

With knowledge of such widespread ferocity, I recently saw Mel Gibson’s movie “Apocalypto,” which deals with the gore of the Mayan civilization. I had heard that the movie’s violence was wildly out of control. But even as I winced at many of the scenes, as a writer and researcher in ancient American archaeology, I found little technical fault with the film other than ridiculous Hollywood ploys and niggling archaeological details.

Indeed, parts of the archaeological record of the Americas read like a war-crimes indictment, with charred skeletons stacked like cordwood and innumerable human remains missing heads, legs and arms. In the American Southwest, which is my area of research, human tissue has been found cooked to the insides of kitchen jars and stained into a ceramic serving ladle. A grinding stone was found full of crushed human finger bones. A sample of human feces came up containing the remains of a cannibal’s meal.

It could be argued that “Apocalypto” dehumanizes Native Americans, turning their ancestors into savage monsters, but I think it does the opposite. Oppressed hunter-gatherers in the movie are presented as people with the same, universal emotions all humans share. And urban Mayans are portrayed as politically and religiously savvy, having made of themselves a monumental, Neolithic empire, something more akin to ancient Egypt than the trouble-free agrarians who come to most people’s minds when they think of native America.

To further shatter that popular notion of Native Americans, there’s the scene in which a turquoise-jeweled priest stands atop a staggering temple yanking out one beating human heart after the next. That’s an image that nearly every archaeologist working in Central America has played in his or her head many times, only now it’s on the big screen for everyone to see.

Being told by screenwriters and archaeologists that their ancestors engaged in death cults tends to make many Native Americans uneasy. In Arizona, Hopi elders turn their eyes to the ground when they hear about their own past stained with overt brutality. The name Hopi means people of peace, which is what they strive to be. Meanwhile, excavators keep digging up evidence of cannibalism and ritualized violence among their ancestors.

How do we rectify the age-old perception of noble and peaceful native America with the reality that at times violence was coordinated on a scale never before witnessed by humanity? The answer is simple. We don’t.

Prior to 1492 it was a complex cultural landscape with civilization ebbing and flowing, the spaces in between traversed by ancient lineages of hunters and gatherers. To the religious core of pre-Columbian Mayans, a beating heart ripped from someone’s chest was a thing of supreme sacredness and not prosaic violence.

If “Apocalypto” has a fault, it is not with its brutality, but with us in the audience who cringe, thinking the Mayans little more than a barbaric people. The fault lies in our misunderstanding of a complicated history, thinking we can lump a whole civilization into a single response and walk out of the movie saying, “That was disgusting.”

Craig Childs is the author of the forthcoming “House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest.”

Poor William's Almanack 12-30-06

2006-12-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

A lighter shade of 'Borat'

The message in a New Year's e-greeting card sent by an Ecuadorean friend yielded a rather crude rendering by altavista.com's "Babel Fish" translation tool, reminding us of the vulgarities and cross-cultural clashes of sensibilities in Sacha Baron Cohen's hilarious film

"Que Dios bendiga este nuevo ano y les llene de luz, paz, salud y sobre todo AMOR,
RECORDANDOLES SIEMPRE"

came out as:

"That God blesses this new anus and fills to them of light, peace, health and mainly LOVE, REMEMBERING to THEM ALWAYS"

Almost worthy of a "Marci-ism"! Maybe start a new category, "Margoth-isms"?

Happy New Year to the Cordova family and their huge circle of friends!

HP Weekly Report, Dec. 26 2006

2006-12-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

Weekly historic preservation report from the city HP Office

Kevin Weight, lead historic preservation planner, provides the Dec. 26 report in HP Officer Barbara Stocklin's absence.

Oakland Triangle Area Historic Designation
On Dec. 19, Historic Preservation (HP) and Planning staff met with opponents to the historic designation of the Oakland Triangle Area (generally bounded by Grand Avenue, 7th Avenue and Roosevelt Street). The opponents indicated that their primary concerns with the proposed HP zoning are limitations on infill development and ambiguity under the current HP design guidelines. HP staff hopes to create a specific set of design guidelines for the proposed historic district that will be agreed upon by both the proponents and opponents. A meeting with the proponents is scheduled for Jan. 2, 2007.

Sacred Heart Church Historic Designation
HP staff met with Aviation staff on Dec. 21 to discuss historic designation for Sacred Heart Church, located at the Sky Harbor Center (near the NE corner of 16th Street and Buckeye Road). The property is one of 22 undesignated sites that were recommended eligible in the Hispanic Historic Property Survey recently completed by the HP Office. Both departments agreed that the building should be designated along with a 25-foot buffer around the structure. HP staff will request that the HP Commission initiate the historic designation on Jan. 22, 2007.

Other properties scheduled for initiation at that time include Grant Park (701 S. 3rd Ave.), Harmon Park (1425 S. 5th Ave.), American Legion Post 41 (715 S. 2nd Ave.), Sotelo-Heard Cemetery (1302 E. Weber), Santa Rita Hall (1017 E. Hadley), Luis Lugo Bakery (415 W. Sherman), Betania Iglesia Presbiteriana (301 W. Pima), Phoenix Housing Authority Office (1305 S. 3rd Ave.), Cartwright School (5833 W. Thomas) and the William Grier House (1942 W. Adams).

Community Noise Reduction Program Meeting
HP staff had a bi-weekly meeting with staff from Aviation’s Community Noise Reduction Program (CNRP) on Dec. 22, 2006. A strategy for evaluating the historic significance of additional residential properties in Phoenix that are eligible for sound mitigation treatments was discussed. Because Federal Aviation Administration funds will be used to reimburse Aviation for these treatments, the project must comply with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act to ensure that there are no adverse impacts to historic properties or that any such impacts are satisfactorily mitigated. HP staff presented a proposed survey methodology and documentation plan, which Aviation will discuss with FAA. If the survey finds any properties eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places then an existing Memorandum of Agreement with the State Historic Preservation Office will need to be amended to include additional stipulations regarding the treatment of these HP eligible properties.

A few capsule (and lengthier) film reviews

2006-12-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Reel Roundup

If you're considering going to a movie on New Year's, here's a few tips on what to see, what to avoid:

Spinning Charlotte’s Web
That gander sure is goosey-whipped. Also, Steve Buscemi can’t top Paul Lynde for oily self-involvement in this wonderful film’s weak predecessor. Hooray for big words! Too bad “Stuart Little” strayed from White’s original.

‘Destiny’: Tendentious D
More cowbell, less cornball antics! The musical duo-ism shown when KG and JB meet on the beach was awesome; they should have replicated that throughout. Devil take the hindmost.

Déjà Vu: Encore & Encore!
Great film; fortunately all the stars are very watchable, as it takes a while to get where it’s really going. But what, really, was Jim Caviezel’s beef? Not enough residuals from “The Passion of the Christ”? Oy, McVeigh! (Note: The ending is virtually the same as in the great romantic comedy, "Heaven Can Wait.")

Meyers, oh Meyers: It’s a girls’ world after all
Throughout “The Holiday,” I kept rooting for Jack Black to break character and dump one—literally, kind of like something out of his role in “Orange County”—on this film. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat all the way through a pure chick flick such as this, and I wouldn’t have—except … my chick was clearly enjoying it. I think the MPAA ought to come up with a cautionary rating for films like this. I have never seen so many women jump, both feet off the floor, in unalloyed, girly joy, as happens in this film. Do grown women actually do this? Do they have “jump-for-joy” muscles in their legs we don’t have, as they have “high-pitched-scream” vocal chords that we guys likewise lack? According to the Talmud, I think this is actually the way to deprive witches of their power: lift them off the ground. Speaking of witches, when hollow Cameron Diaz finally sheds a tear, I could only think of the scene from “The Third Witch” in Barbara Leonie Picard’s wonderful book of fairy tales, The Faun and the Woodcutter’s Daughter: “And in that moment, she knew she loved him. So, because she was a witch, and could not love, the piece of flint that was her heart cracked in two, and she died.”

‘Pan's Labyrinth’: The moral (if any) is what’s really a-maze-ing
Purports to be a moralizing fairy tale, with awesome production and costume design, great casting and acting—but is just brutal, without the purported redemption. Key characters are killed off without that furthering any ultimate philosophical or moral clarity, so that those deaths are meaningless and an artistic affront. The graphic gloominess reminds one of the Spanish artistic esthetic evinced in Picasso’s “Guernica,” Goya’s “The 3rd of May,” and “Saturn Devouring His Son” (note the similarity to the eating of the fairy by the monster in the world beyond the wall). Interesting contrast: The baby here ends up being given over for political purposes, or in a politically charged gesture, while in "Children of Men" (a worthwhile though philosophically thin effort), that travesty is assiduously avoided. In the final analysis, though, "Pan's Labyrinth" can’t figure out whether it is mainly an homage to the rebels against Spanish fascism, or an exploration of childhood imagination and innocence (and their loss)—or whether, trying to be both, it fails at either. A gorgeous waste.

It’s the sustainability, stupid (Gibson does get it)
This film turned out to fulfill exactly what I expected of it, especially as set up by the native interlopers telling Jaguar Paw’s tribe they just want unfettered passage through his hunting grounds, as their own land has been ravaged. But by whom? Earlier in the year, a friend e-mailed me some comments by great debunker Michael Crichton, that you didn’t have to wait for the white man’s arrival in this hemisphere to find oppression and domination—New World peoples oppressed each other. Not exactly: Some oppressed others. It’s historically accurate to depict the great, advanced hierarchical civilizations of Mesoamerica as the same kind of monoculture-based, unsustainable societies as those found in the “march of progress” of Western Civilization, as characterized by Daniel Quinn in his fascinating book Ishmael—technically a novel, but actually a deconstruction of the difference between “Taker” cultures such as Pharaonic Egypt, Mayan Mexico and “Manifestly Destined” America, and the “Leaver” societies of nomads—pastoralists and hunter-gatherers. I took my son to see “Braveheart” when he was about 8, at the same time as I was also reading Little Big Man to him, so I noted the parallels between the hill-clans of Scotland and the tribes of Plains Indians, fighting the respective Taker imperialist cultures of England and the United States. —Even down to the use of war paint, as well as the technological disparities. (I also pointed out the Hanukkah story is the same kind of tale—just substitute the zealously anti-Hellenic Maccabees vs. the Hellenized Assyrians.) But as in one of the points “Braveheart” makes, it’s our wits that makes us men, and technologically backward or not, men have been men—and pretty smart, when they apply themselves—as smart if not as learned as any modern videogame player or high-tech military hardware operator—whether a modern aboriginal or a Cro-Magnon of 25,000 years ago. So from this film’s early moments, I was already primed to witness the magnificent, yet rotting Mayan city—whose denizens preyed upon the backward people of the forest—and to continually expect, eventually, the arrival of the Europeans. In the movie’s terms, that event was not the beginning of the end of the New World’s paradise-on-earth: that paradise has perhaps been found mostly among the “Leaver” peoples, spread around the globe—and threatened—in many places. Taker societies, whether the Romans’, the Mayans’ or ours, tend to end up rotting from within due to their abuse of everything from their people (and enslaved neighbors—the multitudes at the base of the system of production on whom the entire edifice depends, and in whom religion is inculcated as reinforcing the whole fragile scheme) to the environment. They thus eventually only need a nudge from outside to collapse—and this is clearly the point of the epigraph by historian Will Durant emblazoned on the screen as the film opens. This thrust—underlined by the inevitable appearance of the European conquerors at the end—is not only the clear intent of the film, it is the only thing that gives it more weight than what it otherwise appears to be—a bunch of aboriginals running around, fearfully, heroically, steadfastly seeking to keep their promises to their family, not to mention their way of life. Last year’s “The New World” makes an interesting counterpoint to this one, with the Europeans there indeed intruding on the earthly paradise of an Indian culture.

Poor William's Almanack - 12/24/06

2006-12-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

More Marciisms

My wife, Marci, usually hears only partial information about news and current events, digests what she hears poorly and later regurgitates it almost unrecognizably.

Marci heard that Time's "Person of the Year" for 2006 is someone called "You." Who's that Asian guy they named?" she asked. Or maybe, "Hu's that Asian guy they named." With her, it's hard to tell.

Believing in Santa—and surnits

2006-12-23T11:12:00.001-07:00

Kids not more gullible, says shrink

Psychologist: Children are actually using reason and evidence in believing in Santa—because adults dupe them by planting clues as well as creating the whole social context for the belief. (As well as for other, crazier and more consequential lies, according to this blogger.)

Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times Op-Ed online

Do You Believe in Surnits?

By JACQUELINE WOOLLEY

Published: December 23, 2006, New York Times

Austin, Tex.

We delight in our children’s belief in reindeer that can fly and a fat man who fits through chimneys and travels the whole world in a single night. Many children believe fiercely not only in Santa Claus but also in other fantastical beings like the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy from the time they are about 3 until they are 7 or 8.

Their eager belief contributes to the common view, shared by psychologists and other scientists, that young children are credulous (and conversely, that adults are not). Children believe everything they are told, we assume, with little regard for logic, a sense of the real world or any of the other criteria adults use to debunk such fictions as the Loch Ness monster or Sasquatch.

But are children really that different from us? A study that my colleagues and I conducted at the Children’s Research Laboratory at the University of Texas suggests not. We found that, in fact, children use many of the same cues adults use to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Our experiment was designed to investigate how a young child, upon encountering a fantastical being like a unicorn in a storybook, decides whether it is real or imaginary. Adults often make the call based on context. If, for example, we encounter a weird and unfamiliar insect at a science museum, we are more likely to think it is something real than if we find it in a joke store.

To see if children could also use context in this way, we described “surnits” and other made-up things to our study group. To some of the children, we put surnits in a fantastical context: “Ghosts try to catch surnits when they fly around at night.” To others, we characterized them in scientific terms: “Doctors use surnits to help them in the hospital.”

The 4- to 6-year-olds who heard the medical description were much more likely to think surnits were real than children who were told they had something to do with ghosts. The children demonstrated that they do not indiscriminately believe everything they’re told, but use some pretty high-level tools to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

If children are so smart, why do they believe in Santa Claus? My view is that they are exhibiting their very rational and scientific cognitive abilities. The adults they count on to provide reliable information about the world introduce them to Santa. Then his existence is affirmed by friends, books, TV and movies. It is also validated by hard evidence: the half-eaten cookies and empty milk glasses by the tree on Christmas morning.

In other words, children do a great job of scientifically evaluating Santa. And adults do a great job of duping them. As we gradually withdraw our support for the myth, and children piece together the truth, their view of Santa aligns with ours. Perhaps it is this kinship with the adult world that prevents children from feeling anger over having been misled.

So maybe this holiday season, when the children come rushing in to see what Santa brought, we should revel not in their wide-eyed wonder, but in how sophisticated and clever their young minds really are.

Jacqueline Woolley is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Our response:

Hello Prof. Woolley,

Just read your article in the NYT, and I understand its point that it's not that children are more credulous (gullible, prone to fantastic beliefs) than adults.

You point out we actually do a great job of duping them, providing them with at least some evidence and authority for such beliefs as in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. As a psychologist, do you have an opinion as to the harm such beliefs (and our encouraging them) do? Is there any research on whether encouraging children to believe appealing fantasies helps lay the groundwork for irrational future (religious, ideological, etc.) beliefs (many of which are held contrary to moderate standards of logic and evidence)?

Likewise, when children eventually are disabused of many of their incorrect but well-authorized beliefs, perhaps it also weakens their trust in the reliability of their epistemological framework, so that though, ironically, they might be more prone to endorse and adopt beliefs less well supported by the usual markers of truth and factuality. Perhaps these people are then more susceptible to belief in Creationism (Creation "science"), as an example. (Although, admittedly, this scheme and others attempt to adorn themselves in evidence and logic-based raiment. It is their religious underpinnings that are more manifestly anti-rational.)

It seems a truism that belief in Santa Claus is practice for, or an analog to, belief in the theistic God. (Be naughty/nice, get distant-future reward vs. punishment, etc.). However, it seems to me to also be practice for all the other forms of doublethink engaged in and even encouraged by society at large.

I was recent reading the sequel to Prof. Frankfurt's On Bullshit—On Truth—in a bookstore while waiting for my wife to do her shopping. Amid other sensible comments, he then started saying that a society that evidences a disregard for the importance of truth—casualness about whether things said and beliefs held are true or not—cannot flourish.

That's when I put the book down, as obviously (and unfortunately) at odds with the facts. (Of course, a society can't disregard truth in its engineering, scientific, economic and public policy-related activities and long flourish, but apparently those can be somewhat disconnected from other areas of collective life in which truth and falsity also could be operative concepts, but, sadly, generally are not.)

E.g., with you being from the great state of Texas, can you account otherwise for the fact that our current president, a former oilman from a major oil-producing state, etc., was elected twice by people who would not otherwise prefer to be paying 50% to 100% more for their gasoline than when he took office, among all the other burdens heaped on average working people during his administration?

Cheers --and Merry Christmas!

David

Prof. Woolley's response:

Dear David,
Thanks for your thoughtful email regarding my NYTimes op-ed piece in December. My apologies for not replying sooner. You were wondering about relations between Santa beliefs and later religious and ideological beliefs. Unfortunately there is no research of which I am aware that addresses your question. I do plan to conduct research into relations between SC beliefs and God beliefs, tho' it can be hard to get ethics approval for those kinds of studies. Cindy Dell Clark ("Flights of fancy, leaps of faith") argues in her book that SC belief provides the foundation for "faith" and ultimate belief in God. Jehovah's Witnesses and other Fundamentalists discourage SC beliefs for fear that it will negatively impact God beliefs. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children often try to figure out how the two are related, and often think of them similarly. There is some research on children's beliefs in creationism; it may be cognitively "easier" to believe in God than to "believe" in evolutionary theory (Margaret Evans, Pascal Boyer). Re: your final comment re: our great state, I do need to pass along that Travis County (where Austin is) voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the last election; we are a blue county in a red state. Our president presents a fascinating case in point regarding the challenges the fantasy-reality distinction continues to present throughout the life-span.
Best,
Jacqui Woolley
--

Jacqueline Woolley
Professor
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Psychology
1 University Station A8000
Austin, Texas 78712-0187
Office:SEA 4.212
woolley@psy.utexas.edu
512/471-5196
FAX: 512/471-5935

Blogger's note: There would be value in publishing and commenting here on a column in a Wall Street Journal Personal Journal section from last winter (2008, at this point) a commentator's argument that he encourages his sons' belief in Santa, though Santa doesn't exist, because, "Yes, Virginia, there is a God." You could look it up. Kind of pathetic. –DT

Pearls before ... peers

2006-12-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Blogger laments that 'campaigning' fell on deaf ears

Recommendations that fellow film critics give serious consideration for awards to a variety of challenging and difficult, but ideologically and artistically rewarding films go unheeded.

After learning of the practice a few years ago, I "campaigned" lightly for some films I found interesting, and potentially overlooked or misunderstood (see the very first post on this blog: some comments on and exchanges with a fellow critic over the plot and meaning of "The Fountain"). Below see a few sketchy such messages sent to fellow Phoenix Film Critics Society members, in some cases with some of their responses interpolated. (Also just a stray review or two, not yet published, or bit of publicity company feedback.)

The immediately earlier posting is the Society's awards given to films this year, with a comment that consists of the ballot offered by this critic. There was clearly very little overlap between the two, as this critic gave most of his nods to some films that are either somewhat aberrant and/or of limited release, while PFCS as a whole largely stuck to more middle-of-the-road contenders.

Hollywoodland
Apart from how this movie stacks up in the history of film noir, what’s interesting to me—and is an aspect most people seem to have overlooked—is the parallel in the plots, the two “current” plots with Adrien Brody as Louis Simo, P.I. One is the subplot of his paranoid psycho client, who loses his mind, wife, and freedom over his baseless suspicion that she’s cheating, a theory he’s hired Simo to prove (in vain). The parallel lies in the fact that by the end of the film—despite all the viable hypotheses as to who could have murdered “Superman” George Reeves—Simo realizes it’s as likely that Reeves did kill himself, and that he (Simo) has been pursuing the same kind of possibly misguided, obsessive hunt for a villain (and at a similar risk to everything he holds dear) as his hapless former client.

Campaigning comments Dec. 3
I want to recommend "The Proposition" as possibly a sleeper of a film but one that I think rightly ought to at list make the short list in several categories, including Best Picture, Cinematography, acting (Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson and, in a twist, Danny Huston, who seems to have evolved since a somewhat shambling performance in "Silver City," via "Constant Gardener," to this year's roles--also interesting in "Children of Men.")

But is "The Proposition" eligible? ImDb says it was released in '05. Anyway, I thought it was the best "classic tragedy" since "House of Sand and Fog."

Thanks.
DT

"Babel" impression e-mailed to publicity rep (also see review Nov. 20 print edition of The Midtown Messenger).
Excellent, but can a "Crash"-like film win a BP Oscar two years in a row? Those who think this Pitt's sudden "Best Acting" turn should recall "12 Monkeys," "Se7en," among other roles. Anyway, an excellent impressionistic view of the irony of fragmentation and alienation in an increasingly globalized world.

"The Good Shephered" impressions given to publicity rep ... nominated DeNiro for "best breakthrough - behind the camera," as best director.
As to the length, it can take a while to depict a character's long, slow descent from apparent idealism into ethical compromise. (Later gravitated toward peer's view that Matt Damon's "Edward Wilson" was never idealistic, so to speak, but determined, ruthless, discreet ... and patriotic, if you will.)

As to scenes and direction, as well as acting, this film is long (and, euphemistically, as a nod to David Ramsey, "leisurely paced"), but every piece eventually fits into the larger puzzle. E.g., the necklace Wilson finally has returned to Laura. Also the suicide note his father left, which he finally opens and reads ... and burns.

But although Wilson seems high-minded and conscientious, he is "patriotic," but apparently only on behalf members of his ethnic clique, as he makes clear in the conversation with Joe Palmi (Joe Pesci—great makeup job).

So it's not too hard to connect the dots of his career of corruptedness, from when he authorizes his first murder—of the German translator he spent the night with—to his later authorization, by declining to object to it, of the murder of his son's fiancee. His having the incriminating goods on FBI guy (William Hurt) all along also shows how he kept his own counsel, heeded the advice that he couldn't trust anyone, and was calculating and untrustworthy himself all along.

The scenes of the murders of both women are disturbing, though brief. The scenes of Wilson with his son, where tender, are also affecting, though the one where his son realizes his fiancée is not showing up, Wilson Sr.'s supporting embrace is of course a cover for his culpability in her demise—and the shot of the son being held by the father, son not standing on his own two feet, is sad and ironic.

The earlier scene where he doesn't stay to comfort his son in his night fears but instead answers the phone, is telling, and stands as evidence against his later protest to Margaret that "he never abandoned anyone."

Seemingly nice guy, but NOT. Interesting, well-crafted character study.

Only the fact that it seems highly convenient to the story that his son overheard the location of the Bay of Pigs invasion, setting up the final, highly compromising moral choice, is a weakness of this film, from a credibility point of view.

-David

Dec. 8 exchange with PFCS president David Ramsey about the society's choice of "Blood Diamond" as best film of the week (average 8.3 out of 10 rating), in same week in which "Apocalypto" was released ...

Reviews of the films in today's New York Times tend to validate my preference for "Apocalypto."
-DT

I agree with you and it was one of the closest votes of the year.

On the other hand Roeper of Ebert & Roeper said "Blood Diamond" is the Best Film of the Year.

More reasons I don't pay attention to other critics.

Thanks,

David Ramsey
thesnackbar@msn.com

I don't know the general value of Roeper's opinions as expressed on the show, but I can tell you this: Someone gave me a remaindered book of his—his agent turns out to be a woman I know in NYC, who I thought had better judgment. It is full of a bunch of lists, such as how you can tell which characters are going to get killed in the first 20 minute of the film, etc., most overlooked films of all time, etc. etc., and it's the biggest bunch of blatantly unsupported, frivolous opinions and various other BS I've ever seen in printed form.

Some critics are definitely more worthwhile than others, though we all have our idiosyncrasies and subjective tastes. And sometimes they do offer a way of looking at something, or something I'd missed, that I am glad to be made aware of.

I'm about as opinionated as they come, but I really do enjoy getting the benefit of other people's opinions too, when thoughtfully arrived at (even if wrong).

-DT

Message to fellow PFCS members Dec. 14 as ballot deadline approached
I quite liked "Shortbus," but again, as a Thinkfilm DVD their reproduction problems rendered it unplayable, in this case about 2/3 of the way through—better than the 1/3 of the way through screwiness several of their other DVDs experienced. At least I saw more of it, but that also whet my appetite to SEE HOW IT ENDED!

FYI, my second copy of "Tideland" still had problems, but at least I was able to finish watching it. Campaigning Campaigning Campaigning: Besides the awesome performance of the young actress Jodelle Ferland, the score for this film was very interesting and effective (though long portions had no music), as well as the cinematography—and makeup, so to speak. If anyone was put off by this highly idiosyncratic film's garishness, I urge them to give it further viewing and deliberation. Likewise, the gratuitous chatter on imDb.com and the explicit, non-simulated sex in the film "Shortbus" should hopefully not deter serious critics from enjoying and considering this intelligent, amusing and well-acted film for whatever awards it may merit: ensemble acting? (that's said only slightly jokingly). I also considered "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" an excellent ensemble film, and it was much, much different, and better, than I anticipated it would be. I also chime in in support of the award mentioned in a recent e-mail for "Half Nelson."

Cheers,
David

Last bit of campaigning before PFCS voting, in response to a Dec. 15 campaigning message urging consideration of "United 93" for best picture (a great film, recipient of PFCS nod in the end, but other films overshadowed it in the view from here.) In other news, "Fending off closest rivals "The Queen" and "The Departed," "United 93" was voted best picture of 2006 by the New York Film Critics Circle on the fifth ballot."

While we're at it, I want to commend "The Dead Girl" as a film of significant merit, with some outstanding performances and other values, easily overlooked for whatever reason. While Toni Collette is more visible due to "Little Miss Sunshine," I am thinking of nominating her for best supporting actress for "The Good Girl"—even though it's an episodic film and she only appears in the first segment.

As far as that goes, Giovanni Ribisi is usually very worth watching, as here, though he was a bit wasted in "Lost In Translation" and some smaller indie film he agreed to star in in which he plays a paranoid star thinking he's being stalked. But anyone recall his role in Sam Raimi's somewhat overlooked Cate Blanchett vehicle, "The Gift"?

I know there needs to be a certain amount of groupthink or all is chaos and people voting for outlandish things are wasting their vote, but as long as we have a top 10, there's room for quirky choices.

;)

David

Final balloting note: This critic had not as of this post seen several films widely well-regarded and likely worthwhile: "The Queen," "The Prestige," "Hard Candy," "Volver," "Venus," "Casino Royale" and "Days of Glory ("Indigenes").

PFCS 2006 film awards announced

2006-12-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

PHOENIX FILM CRITICS SOCIETY ANNOUNCES 2006 AWARD WINNERS!

Phoenix, AZ (December 19, 2006) – The Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS) is proud to announce their award winners for 2006 and the list of their Top 10 films.

Taking top honors for Best Picture this year is Universal Pictures' "United 93," with "Casino Royale" receiving the second ever Best Stunts award.

"The Departed" and "Little Miss Sunshine" dominate the Seventh annual awards with both films taking best screenplay awards and Martin Scorsese being named Best Director. Jack Nicholson is taking home the Best Supporting Actor award for "The Departed" while "Little Miss Sunshine" collects Best Acting Ensemble and Best Performance by a Youth - Female for Abigail Breslin.

Proving that acting is in the genes Will Smith's son Jaden was named Best Youth Actor – Male for his performance in “Pursuit of Happyness.” Other big winners included Forest Whitaker as Best Actor in "The Last King of Scotland", Helen Mirren Best Actress in "The Queen" and Cate Blanchett wins Best Supporting Actress for her performance in "Notes On A Scandal".

Jennifer Hudson had her breakout performance co-starring in "Dreamgirls" while Emilio Estevez had his breakout performance behind the camera directing “Bobby.”
"Letters From Iwo Jima" was named Best Foreign Language Film, "An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore's warning on global warming was "Best Documentary", "Flushed Away" Best Animated Film and "Charlotte's Web" Best Live Action Family Film.

The Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS), founded in 2000, is comprised of recognized Valley critics who review regularly for Phoenix area print and broadcast outlets. Current members include: David Ramsey, KMLE-FM/KNXV-TV/Arizona Player Magazine, President; Roger Tennis, CLIPS TV Series, Vice President; Frances Rimsza, Foothills Focus/Gear Chatter, Treasurer; Gayle Bass, KTAR-AM, Secretary; Michael Dixon, KTAR-AM, Director; Neil Cohen, Echo Magazine; George Grorud, Java Monthly; Bill Muller, The Arizona Republic; Kathy Cano-Murillo, The Arizona Republic; Richard Nilsen, The Arizona Republic; Scott Craven, The Arizona Republic; Randy Cordova, The Arizona Republic; Craig Outhier, The Tribune Newspapers; Arne Williams, Arizona Informant; Andy Hill, The Ahwatukee Foothills News; Colin Boyd, KZON-FM/College Times; Michael Clawson, West Valley View; Kris Mason, Nearby News; David Tell, The Midtown Messenger; Mark Moorehead, Tempe/Chandler Wrangler News; Jim Ferguson, KGUN-TV/TV Guide Network; Randy Montgomery, Xpoz Magazine/Greensheet; M. V. Moorhead, Wrangler News; Sharon Stenger, Foothills Focus; “Hollywood” Dave Sozinho, KTAR-AM/KRZS-FM; Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star; Jamise Liddell, Arizona Christian News; Lisa Fuller-Magee, KTVK-TV; Stan Robinson, Sonik Magazine; Steven Gregory, Clear Channel Radio.

The complete list of Seventh Annual Phoenix Film Critics Society Award winners:

Best Picture
United 93

Top Ten Films (In Alphabetical Order)
Babel
Bobby
Borat
Children of Men
The Departed
The Last King of Scotland
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
United 93

Best Director
Martin Scorsese - The Departed

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Helen Mirren - The Queen

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Jack Nicholson - The Departed

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Cate Blanchett - Notes On A Scandal

Best Ensemble Acting
Little Miss Sunshine

Best Screenplay written directly for the screen
Little Miss Sunshine

Best Screenplay adapted from another medium
The Departed

Best Live Action Family Film
Charlotte's Web

Overlooked Film of the Year
Hard Candy

Best Animated Film
Flushed Away

Best Foreign Language Film
Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Documentary
An Inconvenient Truth

Best Use of Music
Dreamgirls

Best Cinematography
Apocalypto

Best Film Editing
The Departed

Best Production Design
Marie Antoinette

Best Costume Design
Marie Antoinette

Best Visual Effects
Superman Returns

Best Stunts
Casino Royale

Breakout Performance of the Year - On Screen
Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls

Breakout Performance of the Year - Behind the Camera
Emilio Estevez - Bobby

Best Performance by a Youth in a Lead or Supporting Role - Male
Jaden Smith - Pursuit of Happyness

Best Performance by a Youth in a Lead or Supporting Role - Female
Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine

Film reviews that didn't make the Dec. 18 issue

2006-12-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

Films out now, recently, or already on DVD or in second run:

'Copying Beethoven' doesn’t copy ‘Immortal Beloved,' thank god
They probably got B’s personality right, and, unlike in that abomination, “Immortal Beloved,” they got the music right—didn’t go on repeating the shmaltziest stuff over and over, such as the Emperor Concerto’s middle movement. And didn’t try to make his music-making a refuge from the trauma of alleged abuse by his father. And are correct in having him called, colloquially in the tavern, “Louis” (as in my unfinished screenplay about him). Uneven dramatic arc, though, since the climax with the performance of the immortal 9th comes virtually in the middle of the film. The aim of exploring B’s later, more impenetrable, even grating works, such as the Grosse Fugue—there must be a different way it could have been handled. And Ed Harris has the presence, but not the right voice for the role. Tommy Lee Jones would have been just right, with he and B sharing a pretty pockmarked complexion, in addition to the angular bone structure. But again, the voice ...? “National Treasure’s” Diane Mueller handles herself well, except the tripe written as “her composition”? Somebody fell down on that one. (Like B as if on his whoopee cushion, so unkind.)

Why not call it ‘The History Girly-Boys’?
Did they intend to prove that all Englishmen are really queers? Or just confirm that English “public” schools are rife with casual, “experimental” homosexuality (as well as the more ingrained kind)?

'Little Children'—Full-grown whiners just seem like adults
Perhaps we sometimes benefit from not being a top-tier city. (Why not all films released are screened here?) Well, I was misled by comments on imDb.com into expecting “Little Children,” viewed on DVD screener, to be a fine film. Don’t be misled! While the acting is OK and the themes are of some importance, the script is extremely clumsy and the thrust obvious—and the general spurious grotesqueness of the behaviors and events reminds me of Pat Conroy’s work (The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides). There is intelligent exploration of the question of whether classic tragedienne Emma Bovary is struggling justly for happiness or is merely a selfish, unrealistic, foolish woman whose poor choices hurt her and others*, but overall, this film is one of the bigger stinkers I have seen in quite a while. If this were 20 years ago, the film would be accused of featuring a great deal of yuppie whining, ineffectuality and gratuitous angst. Oh, what the heck: This film features a great deal of yuppie whining, ineffectuality and gratuitous angst. To say your kid “refuses” to sit in its car seat? Give me a break.
*My wife read me a passage recently from Philip Roth’s novel Deception that contained a very good assessment of the false and injurious approach to love that Emma Bovary’s attitudes and behaviors represent.

'For Your Consideration,' for your consideration
Spoiler alert!!!: For the record, I guessed that Ricky Gervais, as the Philistine movie company executive, was warming up to suggesting that--and would succeed in getting--the film-within-the-film to tone down its “Jewyness” (to use Jon Stewart’s less politically correct term for it). Jennifer Coolidge as the similarly clueless but more ingenuously immured “producer with the heart of gold” is also watchable, for that and other reasons. Overall, the film is mostly pretty amusing, especially Fred Willard’s constant in-your-face sarcasm and other gratuitous but well-aimed vulgarity and offensiveness. (Especially enjoyed his snarky comment on foreign film: “Yeah, what’s with all the writing along the bottom of the screen? That ain’t breaking news! …”) Some other gags are rather predictable, such as agent Eugene Levy answering his cell phone in the middle of telling client Harry Shearer there’s nothing more important to him than … Then there’s Shearer’s dead-on understated “shmo-ness,” and the wonderful moment in the scene in “Home for Purim” where his Southern accent suddenly becomes Yiddische, like the chain jumping the sprocket on your out-of-adjustment 10-speed. If you liked “Guffman,” “Best in Show,” you’ll want to add a notch to your bedpost for this one, too (though it’s likewise probably not a very mass-appeal film. Then again, how’d the similarly inside-joke/cultish “Prairie Home Companion” do at the box office? This is better than that, at least.). (And now we learn Christopher Guest is married to Jamie Lee Curtis? What a stud. Stud? What a mensch!)

'The Last King of Scotland' star kind of a pretender
It’s weird: By contrast, I thought Forest Whitaker, who plays the jolly and charismatic but brutal and paranoid Ugandan dictator Idi Amin here, seemed really really empathetic in “Species.” (And James McAvoy seemed more principled, and less casual in his morality and superficial in his idealism, as Tumnus the Faun in “Narnia.”)

Encanto Historic District update

2006-12-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

California developer files appeal of HP designation

Council OK'd overlay for garden apartments, other properties, overruling planning boards

Scott Haskins, owner of properties at 1302 W. McDowell affected by the HP overlay OK’d by Council Nov. 1, filed a takings appeal on Nov. 28, but has indicated he may waive his right to an initial hearing within 30 days, which would place it during the holidays. The appeal is governed by existing state law, not the just-passed Prop. 207.

From our Nov. 20 print issue: Prop. 207 passes. Who's to blame?

2006-12-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

Ballot initiative Proposition 207 wins big

Sold as eminent domain fix, property rights measure; preservation now to face tougher challenges

By David Tell, Messenger Editor
© 2006, Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Amid all the Election Day results that thrill some and depress others, one outcome that ought to be of particular concern for preservation advocates and neighborhood activists is the resounding success at the polls of Proposition 207. Billed as a “property rights” measure and marketed as a response to last year’s “Kelo” decision by the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the transfer of private property to another private owner under an economic redevelopment rationale, the citizens initiative was one of several similar measures placed on the ballot in states around the country.
In Arizona, where eminent domain has been in the news and on the legislative agenda over several years recently, the measure apparently resonated with concerns of many residents, and passed by a wide margin.
As is often the case, however, among the provisions in the measure are some that go beyond the stated aim of eminent domain reform. Of particular concern to many is the fact that the proposition provides for private lawsuits against governments by property owners who might seek to prove that a land use change applied to their property has reduced its value. Some are concerned that this will open a floodgate of expensive litigation against municipalities in particular, leading to the hamstringing of efforts to protect and preserve neighborhoods and structures, and leading to greater caution by governments in pursuing some types of land use planning and protective zoning.
The Protect Arizona Taxpayers Coalition was one group formed by concerned individuals and environmental, preservation, government and neighborhood organizations to attempt to get the word out and defeat Prop 207. In the aftermath of the election, players from that anti-207 coalition are expressing their regrets about the outcome, and in some cases questioning why they were unable to mobilize more voters in opposition to the “property rights” juggernaut.
Paul Barnes, a respected activist who heads the Neighborhoods Coalition of Greater Phoenix, was centrally involved in the anti-207 effort. In talking about the vote’s outcome, Barnes sounded frustrated that the hard work to fight the initiative seemed to have had so little impact. He is also concerned about a process for getting measures on the ballot in the state that—not exclusively to this case—allows out-of-state interests to come in and create new political and economic conditions that they themselves do not necessarily have to live under.
“Obviously, I was disappointed with the results,” Barnes said. “As to what I think it will mean near-term: I’m concerned about its effect on the ability to pass new historic overlay districts, neighborhood special district plans—as well as on this urban form planning.”
“Urban form planning” is a new approach being used elsewhere and currently being considered in Phoenix that elevates design considerations in urban land use planning.
“I think it’s going to have a serious negative impact on neighborhood preservation efforts,” Barnes added. “Perhaps most alarming of all is the fact that you can have an out-of-state group come in and basically buy an initiative—get it on the ballot with out-of-state funds—and be successful with what even the Republic said was a very misleading campaign of what was involved. They used the Trojan horse of eminent domain to cover up the real issue, which was land use planning and the whole legislative takings issue. Their advertising was misleading on television as well as on radio. I think that’s very unfortunate.”
Barnes went on to express some views that he emphasized were exclusively his own, rather than in his role as part of any organization.
“Personally, I think some of the responsibility for having this situation has to rest with the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, as well as the city of Phoenix,” he said. “This past legislative session, I think it would have been much better for them to have worked out a satisfactory solution on eminent domain, rather than taking the ‘higher ground’ that they did, which gave Howard Rich and people of that persuasion an excuse to conjure up this ballot statement.”
Howard Rich is a wealthy New York resident who supported efforts to place similar property rights initiatives on the ballot in a number of states this year.
Ken Strobeck, executive director of the Arizona League of Cities and Towns, deflected Barnes’ finger-pointing. Strobeck said hindsight is 20/20 and admittedly, there are always things you wish you might have done. However, “We worked through the entire session on 19 different eminent domain bills. We had a piece of legislation that we proposed that we think was a very good compromise, but that tried to answer concerns of people who thought eminent domain is out of control,” Strobeck said. “The Legislature did not even give that bill a hearing. Howard Rich paid $14 million for this kind of initiative to be run in 11 different states; this was a measure the was going to come down the tracks [no matter what else happened]. Whatever did pass was not going to be enough.”
Strobeck didn’t itemize all the areas or items where he believed the League’s proposed legislation better met the concerns of eminent domain reformers, but Barnes said an area the league and its constituents had previously balked at included tightening up the definitions of slum and blight.
But Strobeck said he thought that concern had been fairly addressed. “We agreed to do a property-by-property finding of blight and slum areas,” he said. “That was one of their big pushes, that a finding can’t be block-by-block.”
Strobeck said some outlandish criteria for a finding of blight, such as the existence of curved streets (as has been mentioned in our letters column by downtown resident and eminent domain critic Erick Baer) are relics that are rarely if ever used. “That’s in the original statute that goes back almost 100 years,” he said. “Pull them out in today’s context, you’d go ‘That isn’t blighted.’ —Some of those really obscure provisions, cities don’t hang their hat on things like that. We agreed to leave those things out.”
Strobeck’s rebuttals notwithstanding, Barnes feels negotiators dragged their feet on coming to the table with needed concessions to get a viable eminent domain reform bill. As it was, a bill passed, and Gov. Janet Napolitano nixed it, in her record-setting use of the veto pen. That’s not what bothers Barnes: “The bill that did reach the governor was clearly not acceptable,” he said. However, of the League’s never-considered proposal, “They weren’t early enough with a bill that would be a sufficient compromise to keep everybody happy. Initially they were holding out for too much, and by the time they came around, it was too late,” he said, adding that lack of a timely willingness to tighten up on the definition of slum and blight “was part of it.”
Moreover, “Neither the governor nor the mayor were willing to come out strongly against this [proposition], regrettably. The governor was silent on it,” Barnes lamented. “Schwarzenegger came out against [a similar initiative] in California and it didn’t pass there. I don’t feel we got the support from the people that we needed. It could have made a difference.”
Mayor Phil Gordon’s failure to use his bully pulpit against the proposition is especially culpable, as “the things they want to do downtown are going to be seriously hampered by 207 as it was passed,” Barnes said.
District 6 City Councilman Greg Stanton, who authored an anti-Prop 207 column for this publication last month, also rues the outcome, and while he prefers not to lay blame, he agrees there is responsibility to go around for not adequately educating the voters about the ballot item. And he also gives credit where credit is due.
“Paul and the citizens group that came together did the best job they could on a shoestring budget,” Stanton said. “I think we all learned an important lesson: There should have been a more organized and funded campaign against 207. On a statewide issue, in this day and age, you really need a significant budget. With so many issues on the ballot, there could not be a well-funded effort on all of them.” That said, “There wasn’t a huge amount of intensive outreach” on the anti-207 side,” he said. “The public bodies as a whole really have to do some thinking about this one, everyone needs to look at themselves and say ‘Did we do enough?’—because this passed overwhelmingly.” The measure was approved 65 percent to 35 percent.
“We were never fully able to educate folks on the implications on the ‘diminution of property values’ side of the issue,” Stanton said. “Collectively, for those of us who represent cities and the people, this was not in the best interest of the people I represent, to protect our neighborhoods.” Barnes is one of Stanton’s constituents, living in the Arcadia area, which is full of large-lot homes and has a zoning overlay to protect its character. Some vintage areas of north central Phoenix with historic or other zoning protection are also in Stanton’s district.
Stanton agreed that the proposition was misleadingly marketed, and rode a wave of popular ire over the “Kelo” decision, in which some longtime Connecticut homeowners were displaced to make way for a private development.
“Prop 207 led with the issue of private property rights, and if you talk in those terms, it’s a hard issue to overcome. Everybody wants to protect private property rights, and with ‘Kelo,’ Bailey’s, private property rights have been brought to the forefront. Those things are protected. We have one of the most restrictive eminent domain regimes in the country—that’s why we still have Bailey’s Brake Shop; he’ still operating,” Stanton said. But “I don’t think the proposition was fully vetted, people didn’t understand its full impact. The measure’s creation of a cause of action against government for diminution of property values—there are instances when people are reasonably going to ask their government to step in and act on behalf of historic preservation, and [now] it won’t be able to. Once people see down the line, there will be an attempt to revise this measure,” Stanton predicted. “I have the feeling there will be changes made to this law. Historic preservation, special planning districts, are things the public supports.”
In the meantime, though things will be more difficult in those arenas, Stanton predicted.
Asked whether the risk now is that governments will pull back from reasonably regulating land use in some instances; that there could be large payouts from diminution-of-value lawsuits in some cases; or that such suits would hobble the system, Stanton said “All of the above. Whereas the city has a very strong and vibrant HP effort, that will be set back. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to do HP at all, but in the controversial cases, where we do a ‘gut check,’ things might come out differently [than if based on an analysis of the merits],” Stanton said. “The kind of votes where there is significant opposition are the ones in question. The easy votes will still be easy. But because of the cost to the people of this city, the harder cases might give us pause. That’s not a hypothetical.”
Asked whether the current controversies over extending historic overlays in the Encanto-Palmcroft and Oakland historic districts are the kinds of cases that might be affected, Stanton answered cautiously. “I hate to put it in terms of a specific case; the dynamics of each case are different,” he said. But, “When you have HP zoning of an area where the property owner doesn’t want it, that’s exactly the kind of situation at issue” under the newly passed law.
Stanton said ideally, owner support should not weigh heavily in such decisions. “When we analyze HP, the question should be, ‘Is their area historic, is it deserving of the status of being historic?’ Occasionally that means the property owner doesn’t want it,” he said. “But just because of being designated historic, that doesn’t mean you can’t develop your property. There are significant limitations, you may have to wait a year, ponder, think it through ... I’ve never viewed HP as some kind of draconian land use designation; it strikes a balance between the interests of the community as a whole and the property owner.”
But, as a case of another protective zoning move that perhaps wouldn’t happen under Prop 207, the “Warehouse District Overlay, we’d have to think long and hard before we’d do that again,” Stanton said. “Land use is an area where the issues are often very complex, issues are subtle. We’ll take the individual cases, and we work hard on them. In most cases, HP is done in partnership with property owners. Most cases are promoted by people who love preservation, and in most cases, the zoning adds value to a property.”
In the end, “HP was one of the big reasons why I opposed 207, that’s where it may have the most unintended impact,” Stanton said, “Preservation has been a pretty good priority of City Council.”
As important as HP is, the potential effects of 207 go further, Stanton said. “What if we want to upgrade our design standards, for big boxes, for example? Arguably, that’s a restriction on property, that adds a cost to developing that land,” he said But ultimately, “It’s improving the community.”
“From my political position, the Supreme Court was wrong in ‘Kelo.’ That was wrongly decided,” Stanton said. “I don’t think they should have allowed a private taking in the case without blight; I was surprised East Coast states apparently have such loose restrictions on the use of eminent domain.”
But as a regrettable outcome of the measures passed in reaction, “The effects of 207 will be a hotly debated and hotly contested issue in the years to come across the state. This will be a field day for lawyers,” Stanton—a former lawyer himself—concluded.
Strobeck agreed with Barnes and Stanton that the outcome is unfortunate and that the measure was misleadingly sold. “We’re very sorry that it did pass. It’s one of those things: People thought they were voting on eminent domain, heard so much about that, were not aware of all the things stuffed into the measure,” he said. “The regulatory takings provision, that’s going to be litigated for years, will be very costly for all levels of government—and first, for citizens.”
Strobeck confirmed it was the League that sued a few months ago to try to get the initiative knocked off the ballot, for failing to meet a requirement adopted in recent years, that citizen initiatives attempting to create new programs entailing government expenditures identify a funding source to pay for them. For example, Proposition 203, which creates child health and education programs, also adds a new tobacco tax to pay for them.
“We analyzed the measure from a whole bunch of different angles, and our attorneys decided that was the strongest angle, that it did not have a funding source identified,” Strobeck said. “Voters passed an initiative [with that provision] two years ago, but that requirement only applied to state government, not to counties or cities.
“We got a ruling from Superior Court; it said ‘You’re right, it probably is unconstitutional. But they declined to invalidate it, saying ‘That would be getting into the substance of the measure.’ It came down to a question of ‘ripeness,’” he said.
Strobeck said he doesn’t know whether that legal challenge will now be renewed. “We haven’t made a final decision,” he said. “We did look at the Supreme Court decision yesterday [Nov. 10] upholding that decision. They also threw out the finding that it was clearly unconstitutional.”
Strobeck said the measure isn’t invalid for having multiple subjects, as that only applies to proposed constitutional amendments. But interestingly, that issue has some relevance to the rejection of the legal challenge to 207, based on the courts’ insistence it was premature to invalidate it reading it for problems of substance, rather than form. “Our attorneys have said using the Supreme Court standard that they put in yesterday, even a ‘multiple subject’ lawsuit would have to be a post-election challenge, as it would require the court to read the essence of the measure.”
But given the latest ruling, to fight the initiative now, “We would have to bring a new suit,” he said.
As for Phoenix’s outlook, “I have a meeting set with the Law Department to find what implications are,” city HP Officer Barbara Stocklin said. “Clearly there will be implications for the HP office and our programs.”
According to Larry Felix, an attorney in the city’s Law Department, “I was at several meetings about this” during the campaign season, and city staff “were saying they expected lawsuits to be filed.”
Felix said he isn’t the specialist in this area and that City Attorney Gary Verburg or Deputy City Attorney Bill Bock would probably be part of meetings such as the one with Stocklin, as well as city staff attorney Margaret Wilson, who specializes in zoning.
In the meantime, “There’s quite a bit of work the city is involved in, on the consequences the city will have to live with,” due to 207’s passage, Felix said. In Oregon, where a similar statute has been in effect a couple of years, “there has been $7 billion in claims,” Felix said. He wasn’t confendent of the magnitude, but if it is that large, it’s probably because there, “the law was retroactive.” Here, as far as he can tell, it is not.
Also looking more widely, a Wall Street Journal editorial (Nov. 11-12 edition) commented that “three states that rejected similar measures—California, Washington and Idaho—did so in part because proponents overreached politically by insisting that landowners should be compensated when government regulations diminish their property values. Opponents were able to portray this as a threat to state budgets and fiscal prudence.”
As for the Protect Arizona Taxpayers Coalition, it released a statement following the passage of Prop 207:
“If the initiative process is to remain viable and retain its integrity we must ensure that our rights as voters cannot be auctioned off to the highest out-of-state bidder. Close to $1.5 million was spent by special interests from outside of Arizona to put Prop 207 on the ballot and mount a deceptive campaign designed to trick the voters into voting yes. The organizations that bankrolled this initiative are all connected to Howard Rich, a wealthy real estate speculator from New York.
“Now that we’ve given Howard Rich a foot in the door he will most assuredly be back with even more extreme measures.
“Proposition 207 will result in serious consequences for the state of Arizona and could have a devastating affect on our quality of life and our ability to enact laws that protect our neighborhoods and communities. Under the guise of addressing eminent domain, Prop 207 goes far beyond. It includes an extremely confusing and deceptive measure that forces taxpayers to pay land speculators for unrealized profits caused by community planning restrictions or waive the restrictions for them.
“We must now pull together as a state to figure out a way to right this wrong, and commit ourselves to remaining vigilant in the future so that we cannot be fooled again.”
On a broader note, does the change in political winds nationally signify a resolve against “getting fooled again?” Maybe, maybe not: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (Coincidentally, The Who are now touring to promote their first new album in decades.)

'Apocalypto' review taken a step further

2006-12-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Here's the response to the film as given to the publicity agency representative following the press screening ... for the complete review, pick up a copy of the Dec. 18 Midtown Messenger, or visit here a week later for the complete review, and others ...

'Apocalypto': It's the sustainability, stupid. (Gibson does get it)

In "Apocalypto," Mel Gibson continues where he left off in both "Braveheart" and, in a minor way, "The Passion of the Christ."

Following one of "Braveheart's" themes, he continues to uphold the essential value and goodness of small-scale "sustainable" societies (i.e., Daniel Quinn's "Leavers") and documents their ultimately vain struggle against imperial, hierarchical civilizations (Quinn's "Takers").

Following an implication of his professed Catholicism, he points out that Mesoamerican civilizations were not some kind of paradise, but corrupt, decaying and evil--cultures of cruelty and death--as much a "Taker" type of civilization as any to be found--and which also depredated their nearby "Leaver" peoples.

This is historically accurate. So, in his view, it presumably should also rob us of much sympathy for the way the Mayan and other large Mesoamerican civilizations fell victim to the Western invaders. (I.e., consider the Will Durant epigraph at the opening of the film.)

Understood in these terms, the storyline is exactly what I'd hoped it would be. Acting, cinematography, production design, directing etc. all seemed masterful to me, though the casting was somewhat off, with the producers mistakenly thinking anyone of brown skin would fit as New World aboriginals, while some of the actors were clearly of Midde Eastern ethnicity (e.g., Jaguar Paw's wife).

The gore (and the hero's superhuman stoicism and resolve) were classic Gibson--as well as the gimmick of having people look distasteful in proportion as they are evil or corrupt. (E.g., the fat little Mayan princeling on the temple summit, the diseased little girl "prophet" with the facial boils, etc.)

I did enjoy the proud mantra: "I have hunted this forest with my father, as he did with his father," etc. As I recited to Wendy (the screening rep): "My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ... My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ..." etc.

New Garfield infill housing unveiled

2006-12-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

Dana Johnson of the Garfield Organization’s Revitalization and Economic Development committee invited the public to an unveiling of new, single-family infill houses in the neighborhood.

An Open House around the unveiling was held Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 1025 E. Portland, Garfield Neighborhood, Phoenix. The following announcement describes the significance of the housing toasted at the event.

For over a decade, Garfield Organization (GO) has partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix and the City of Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department to develop infill houses. The goal: to fill vacant lots in Garfield neighborhood with single family homes, inviting new homeowners. Garfield Organization has a vision of what is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood, and has always insisted on infill housing that fits that vision.

After working to support two new historic district overlays in the neighborhood, Garfield residents further responded with a request for new house designs to express a more contextual esthetic in infill housing in their neighborhood. In response to GO’s request, an RFQ was issued and several architects were interviewed.

The winning proposer was Roberts Jones Associates, an award-winning architectural firm with a reputation for designing high-end custom houses from Carefree to Sedona. Their designs for Garfield’s infill houses demonstrate that affordable housing can fulfill the requirements of historically appropriate context, while also meeting financial and market constraints. Roberts Jones Associates accomplished this goal while also exhibiting attention to detail both in materials and in use of vernacular design elements.

Poor William's Almanack - 12/10/06

2006-12-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

APHORISMS, or, notes for a stand-up routine

©2006
David "Poor William" Tell

The suffix of the word “misogynist” seems to imply that merely by adding a little focus, one can refine a general, perhaps casual hatred of mankind into something more a hobby or art.

If the valley in which Phoenix lies were meant for human habitation, the Hohokam would still be living there.

I’ll never forget the time my wife told me the difference between me and her is that she doesn’t dwell on the differences between people.

She also once admitted that once she gets breast implants, she’ll probably find other aspects of her body to be dissatisfied with. “Yes,” I said, “but at least then you’ll be able to take your mind off it by playing with your boobs.”

Filial love probably arises in early childhood from the sycophancy of being “in” or “tight” with the most important person you know.

I like product names. I noticed an RV with the model name “Intruder” emblazoned on it. I imagined the tagline or slogan to go along with this product: “And we’re parking in your neighborhood!”

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is “my wife’s and my movie.” It’s about a couple who get a second chance at their relationship because HOW MUCH THEY HATE EACH OTHER HAS BEEN BURNED OUT OF THEIR MEMORIES!

Or, to put it differently, paraphrasing Santayana: “Those who can’t remember the history of their relationship are doomed to repeat it.”

This is true: My toilet paper brand found an innovative place to put a coupon to buy more of their product. Actually, I didn’t notice it right away. But the clerk I hand it to probably will.

Ode to a Civic Structure – With a Phoenician Turn

2006-12-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

As the extensive expansion and revamping of Phoenix Civic Plaza grinds toward completion, it seems fitting to post here a poem written by Midtown resident Amy Taylor, submitted to The Midtown Messenger for publication in July of 2004. Amy said in a cover note that the poem was written before the existing Civic Plaza was completed in 1972, when she worked as a nighttime answering service operator near Central and Thomas. In that stint, she said, a Civic Center guard who would report in by phone from the site offered her a private tour at midnight one night. Amy was 47 at the time, and married, and her relationship with the guard--and their rendezvous for the tour--were strictly platonic, she said in her note. Amy added that she provided the poem to the Maricopa Recorder’s Office after writing it in 1972.

Editor's additional note: Attempts to call Amy at the number she gave in 2004 and one found online reached "number not in service" messages. If anyone who knew Amy knows her current whereabouts and health condition, please contact us. In any case, we hope her poem's publication here gives it exposure that Amy would find gratifying.

Phoenix Civic Plaza

Manifestation - Revelation

I asked “Is that [the] new civic plaza
Where you’re working as guard?”
He said “Why don’t you come see it,
I can show you, ’tisn’t hard.
First you find Fifth and Van Buren,
The turn south through the stop gate,
Then stand and wait,
Blow your horn, and I will listen
For the sound, I’ll be around.”

Velvet dark the Phoenix sky,
Stars twinkling Andromeda,
Noise of traffic moving near,
Sounds of city,
Sounds of fear,
Midnight, waiting for the guard, Locket,
He will show me round the civic plaza.
I have found, the best way to see the sights,
Is ask the people working nights.

Airplanes gliding overhead,
Electricians in their beds,
The building looms a solid mass,
Wire gates for the trucks to pass,
Chain link fencing circles round,
Construction trailers on the ground.
All visitors must check in at
The Del Webb building, think of that.

Police cruisers on the prowl,
Three hippies pass, their night to howl,
Sit and wait,
At the gate,
Lights are flashing, getting late,
Listen to the radio,
Solid rock, full of life,
People’s problems,
Songs of strife,
Noisy love songs, loud and clear,
Are playing while I’m sitting here.

There’s a car along the street,
Here comes Locket looking neat,
Cowboy hat, pants as tight as skin,
Victory sign, it must be him,
He looks as cute as cute can be,
Smiling as he looks at me.

Overhead doors in a row,
Vast empty rooms, light fixtures glow,
Massive chambers, dark and quiet,
Box offices await the crowd,
Planned for people by the thousand,
Our footsteps on the bare floor pound
And echo as we cross the space,
Transformers hum,
Architects’ schemes,
To make a background for his dreams.

In visions I can see the place,
Filled with all the human race.
Conventions here from every state,
The entrance at the going rate,
For trailer shows, boat, car and coin,
All people here in Phoenix join
The kids crowding through the gates,
To many various shows, a spate.

Stairways leading from the ground,
General offices abound,
The ghostly figures pass,
In dreams behind the blackened glass.

Walkway taken over Third Street,
Third Street dipping underneath,
Square on square of patterned concrete,
Squares of velvet for our feet,
Round reservoir, which is in truth
Mythological fountain of youth.

Main entrance to the concert hall,
Solid glass three-eighths inch thick
Rising up to fifty feet.
Silicate of tinted glass
Defying the bright sun to pass.
Concrete shell to catch the sound,
Smooth, elliptical and round.

In a little room the phone is.
Locket made a call to Burns,
To record the fact that he was working.
Then he turns.
Amy do you see the drawings
That they follow as they work.
See the rolls and rolls of blueprints,
Book of plans is inches thick.
See the rolls and rolls of dreams
Transformed into reality,
Then rolled up and tucked away.
Dry leaves curled on an autumn day,
Victims of autumnal blast,
When their usefulness is past.

Moving through the empty spaces,
See the vast and darkened places,
Hydraulic orchestra pit lift,
Musicians offered up, a gift.
Power lifted elevator for unloading scenery,
Exit signs are glowing red,
I can see way overhead.
Light is on the second floor
Shining on an open door,
Dressing rooms are all around,
But the keys cannot be found.
Walking on the concrete bare,
Carpeting will soon be there.
Hear applause, the actors bow,
See the visions then and now.
When all assembled and complete,
Two thousand and more it will seat.
Dark - a flashlight - on the stage,
Scaffolding’s intricate maze
Reaching heavenward so high,
Seeming that they touch the sky.

In one corner of the stage,
To reach the gridiron overhead,
A Jacob’s ladder, round and round,
Black spiral staircase is found,
From ground to gridiron, eighty five feet,
Metal, black, and very neat,
Like smoke rising to the sky,
Curling to the heavens high.
Or a black dust devil dancing,
Swirling in the desert bare
While the stormclouds are advancing,
Ominous the desert air.

Manila ropes connect to cables,
Cables connect to the pipes,
Pipes to hang the scenery,
Single purchase counterweights,
Added weights to compensate,
Ropes for curtains by the score
Actually sixty five or more.

Caverns underneath the buildings
Waiting for a thousand cars,
Supporting pillars, full of grace
Like atlas hold the world in place.
Think of the hole they dug before
The concrete mixers start to pour.

From Monroe south to Washington,
That’s two blocks wide, and three blocks long
A vision, yes, a lovely dream
Is rising in this Phoenix scene.

Beneath the overpass we walked
On empty Third Street, and we talked
Of Phoenix, how we felt about her,
The lack of night life in the center,
How Tucson has much more to offer,
Las Vegas is more to our choice
Where day and night blend into one,
No clocks to tell the time of day,
To drift along bohemian way,
And never have to say,
“That’s closed, we must go home.”

It would be nice, if, in this scheme
They'd plan a nightlife for the scene
So when conventioners arrive
The nightclubs would grow and thrive
When people came they'd have no fear
Of what they're going to here.

We found the door, the metal stair,
And climbed to catwalk waiting there,
I looked below, beyond the lights
And was amazed to find my knees
Which usually would shake with fright,
And with sheer terror I would freeze,
They didn't shake when looking down.

We climbed aloft, until we reached the roof,
Then walked beyond and viewed the fairy city,
How fabulous and truly pretty,
The sky a shade of gentian blue,
Even of the darkest hue,
The lights were twinkling all around,
As far as we could see,
And we thought what a pity,
The smog obscured mountains beyond,
There were no edges to the pond,
The water lay as though below,
With stars reflected in the glow,
The sky above, the air was chill,
The view gave me such a thrill.

We slowly walked down to the ground,
To powdery dust that's all around,
And walked and talked of life and such,
Of many things, yet not of much.

I said goodbye, he locked the gate,
The very strangest thing is fate,
That I should meet a guard like him,
And on a momentary whim,
Be privileged alone to view
The Civic Plaza - all brand new.

Coronado neighborhood announces its first Visual Award, to a 1925 home

2006-11-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

Award winner open, exhibiting art on First Fridays

Coronado resident and activist Wayne Murray announces the first-time award and explains the process, event.

The Coronado Awards Panel has chosen the home of Thomas Blee-Carlyle and Aaron Carter as the first recipient of the “Coronado Visual Award.” It was on the 2006 Coronado Home Tour and since then, the outward improvements speak for themselves. This award was brought to this point by Katie O’Neal and panel members Jody Clute, Brian Enas, Richard Freshley, Mary Henningsen, Wayne Murray and Brian Vance, and was discussed with many more neighbors at the Day of the Dead event.
Aaron and Tom work constantly to improve and rejuvenate the East Side of Coronado. Each First Friday the doors of their home are open to neighbors to talk as they host an art gallery showing. Please come meet Aaron and Tom some First Friday soon and see why this home was selected.
They have gone above and beyond in the renovation of this rare Phoenix home to grant our community with a treasure now to be honored with the Coronado Visual Award. In gratitude for their efforts, Monica at MacAlpine’s has generously donated dinner or lunch for two as part of this award. Congratulations and thank you Monica!

Click here, SCOTSCRAIG AWARD, for a link to slideshow of the home. (Wait a moment for buffering of the Windows Media video.)

Below is a description of the home written by Aaron Carter. The award panel offers the homeowners an opportunity to write their own words about their home.

Built in 1925, the Tudor Bungalow is affectionately named “Scotscraig” after the name of the original development. An important design tenant was to integrate the desert and period colors with the visual and physical elements of the home. The 18-month custom period renovation restored historic details both inside and out while being sensitive to the environment and modernization. Tom and I tried to visualize then harmonize these visceral aspects: color, light, sound and texture.
The front landscape uses desert plantings. The bright reds, oranges and yellows resonate with the red pavestone, red rocks, cement entryway, decorative painting on the portico, and large boulders. In this way, the warm colors are brushed across the fragile salvia blooms, the enduring pavestone, and hand-painted portico. The 1940’s barn is cloaked in marigold orange, agave green, and geranium red. The color palette expands to include the antique copper mineral tone of the landscape lighting, announcing the homes location in Arizona. The mountains around are symbolized by the granite grey of the pea gravel, river rocks, stones and fountain. The period olivine greens and browns of the half-timbering and trim, as well as the painted red wood fence, represent the wooded forest one might find a Tudor Bungalow.
Black and white striped fabric awnings further enhance the graphic qualities and present a framing for the entire scene. The post lights offer their fire at night, and the fountain captures the essence of life while bringing a calming sound. An integration of location, environment, history and flora results in a friendly visual award-winning appeal.

Read this preview chapter of a new memoir, promised in the review of "Running With Scissors" in our Nov. 20 print issue

2006-11-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Here is Chapter Four of the memoir-in-progress, My Life and High Times, which loosely emulates James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times, in covering about the same period of my life as his memoir did his--my life also serendipitously suggesting chapter titles that, again, echo Thurber's. I wish I could also say the writing is similar and, especially, that the humorous touch is as light as his. I tried, but alas, my style is my own, such as it is. And it's my life, anyway. Welcome to it ...

The title of this chapter alludes to Thurber's "The Day the Dam Broke." I dedicate it to my two wonderful, more or less drug-free children, now that they are adults and the question of obtaining custody is entirely moot.

Chapter Three

The Day All Hell Broke Loose
© 2006. All rights reserved.

In “those years,” my friends and I, like all subcultures, had our own little set of code words and specialized slang. In addition to articulated grunts, squeaks, clicks, whistles, whoops and burps, we also used a number of made-up words (or regular words with special meanings), the general import of all of which was that we were really cool. (We didn’t do too much with secret hand gestures or handshakes, though Colby Pressley and I did get in trouble once in 7th grade for what Mrs. Koontz oddly assumed were some kind of sexually suggestive finger motions. Actually, here’s what was going on: There was some odd bit of wispy lint or fuzz that I had noticed floating across the room toward me among the thousands of more minute motes and dust specks visible in a broad shaft of sunlight stabbing though our English classroom one slow afternoon. Now distracted from the blackboard exercises in grammar trees, I snatched the lazily wafting piece of fuzz, and, by rubbing my thumb and forefinger together, managed to re-release it, in Colby’s direction. We played “catch” for a few slo-mo back-and-forths with the amazing wisp of fuzz, but meanwhile, all Mrs. Koontz could see was that we were intermittently rubbing our thumb and finger together across the room at each other. After we failed to take the import of her deadly glare, she called us to her desk, where we cleared up the misunderstanding. I suppose we produced the fuzz-bit as evidence, though in my view, her guess that we were making some kind of dirty gesture was more outlandish than the real story. Jeez.)
Some of our druggie-era slang included “berry-face”: an allusion to someone having a beaming, perhaps even flushed face, though the beatific grin was the real clincher. This term was drawn from our fascination, when tripping, with the ripe dogwood berries ubiquitous around our landscape. These autumn adornments are a shiny bright scarlet as ordinarily beheld--and incandescent little drops of immanent godhead when you’re hallucinating. Another, more made-up term was “neckle-nozle peacock-eyes,” which referred to the eyes of someone having an LSD experience--luminous, shiny, and with telltale dilated pupils. Stan, one of the more creative, and correspondingly unstable, members of our little clique, came up with this one, among others.
So, just as smoking pot itself is kind of child’s play, the slang that comes from that part of stoner culture is clearly infantile compared to mature expressions such as this highly abbreviated version of our LSD-related lexicon. As for getting initiated into that subcultural niche, there’s a first time for everyone.
Mine came on an otherwise inauspicious Saturday, during the year when I was already seeing a counselor as part of a small group with some other “troubled but salvageable” kids. I suppose I was sent there as the outcome of a series of misadventures beginning with the time I didn’t come home till 3 a.m., which was about two days past curfew when I was 14. You see, as the youth theater’s “Fiddler on the Roof” opening night party wound down (I played one of kids betrothed to the younger girls, a non-speaking part--and worked behind the scenes on sets and lighting), Gordon, the lighting designer, and Wayne, another really cool older guy, asked if I wanted to go to some girl’s house where we would “get laid,” they promised. (It was a big gyp, of course; and moreover, the night’s featured coquette, Karen Hyde, was, years later, a thorn in my side in a Philosophy of Religion class at the local U., where I was an East-leaning atheist, and she was at that juncture a born-again Baptist. Gordon, who lived in William Jennings Bryan’s old home, actually somehow ended up coming over to my house to go to bat for me against the more dire punishments my parents had in mind. As a ressult, I ended up grounded for a month, sans the eight hours of rock-bustin’ on non-school days.)
I think the event immediately triggering the counseling, though, was when Stan, Drew, Steve Ward and I ended up having to be picked up at the police station at 1 a.m. by our parents, who were a little peeved about it. Drew and I had been spending the night at Stan’s and we snuck out and met Steve, and all went over to Robin Young’s, and we were throwing pebbles at her bedroom window, to get her to come out too, except we actually had no idea which was her window. Perhaps her parents thought it was a light shower of very small meteorites--although if I thought that, I would probably turn on the radio for a civil defense message, rather than calling the police. Jeez.
One of the other counseling participants was a girl with trichtilomania, which means she pulled her own hair out in handfuls. I think it was was whispering offensive come-ons in her right ear. She would have been kind of cute, too, except ... you know those dolls that little girls play with, with the synthetic hair, and after a few years, you can see the pattern of holes in their pink rubber scalp that the hair no longer hides?
There was another kid in the counseling, too, whose misdeeds I was never clear on. I hung out at his house a few times, and I think it reassured both sets of parents that our activity together never went beyond “listlessness.”
Our counselor was Don Boone, M.S.W., an early “tough-love” advocate who looked kind of like Dr. Phil except his shaved head and ears were shaped more like Henry’s, the silent kid from the comics. He comes into this story again later, in peanut-headed cameo.
So, this one Saturday, I was to meet this black kid named Daniel at Montford Park, in the once stately but now seedier part of town that my sister now lives in now that it’s getting gentrified all over again. I waited forever ... the kind of forever that, the longer you wait, the more sure you are you’ll just have missed the guy, and after all that time invested, too! He did eventually show up. From my own commerce, I later understood how little it may have been worth it to him to meet some suburban nerd just to sell a $3 pill.
The pill was, I think, Purple Barrel acid, which is just like the name sounds. I took it then and there, and that was the fatal mistake.
I already knew academically that LSD trips could last twelve to sixteen hours or more. I knew this from reading Dr. Joel Fort’s books about treating wacked-out druggies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the ’60s. That’s where also I learned Valium could keep me from going over the bright orange edge into the rabbit-hole of irreversible madness, if I had taken anything labeled “Eat Me.” I also checked the overdose level and “contraindications” of various fun pharmaceuticals such as Obedrin LA (a form of prescribed amphetamine--a white pill infused with flecks of red fun-crystals, and called “Strawberry Shortcake” by the depraved) and oxycodone (Percodan, or synthetic morphine), in my girlfriend Jennifer’s decased father’s Physician’s Desk Reference before lightly and casually abusing them.
I was a rebel, a bad kid--but also a Nice Jewish Boy. OK, I was a nerd.
Anyway, I took the acid, then started walking toward the east side of downtown from Montford, where I would be able to more directly hitch-hike my way to Jennifer’s house. This was about 3 in the afternoon.
Jennifer’s mom was one of those “pal” kind of parents who make their home a hospitable hangout for her daughters’ friends--in the spaces between shrieking at one or both of her female offspring, driving them to tears (and booze, drugs and the comforting embrace of horny young boys). Tina drank Champales all day with no evident effect except that it made her oblivious to our oblique derision. By the time she switched to vodka tonics in the evening, teasing her became a complete waste of breath, but she took up the slack by berating her friend Edward, who could also often be found hanging around the Vernon house. The tragedy of his having been a lobotomy patient made teasing him a little too guilt-ridden an exercise for outsiders, but at least we could watch the Vernons, including elementary-school-age Betsy and Billy, mess with his head.
Edward wasn’t there that day, but Don Boone, who also had a therapeutic relationship, separately, with the Vernons, dropped by. I smugly, breezily said “Hi” to Don, who himself kind of breezed in and out, and that was about the last breezy thing to take place that day, as my trip then moved from the phase of fascinating and peculiar physical sensations to one of total, tongue-tying, jaw-dropping mystical awe. So, had we run into one another a few minutes later, Don would have had the advantage. Even Edward.
The physical effects: First, “electric teeth.” Speed, I later learned, tends to make you clench your jaw and grind your teeth with an involuntary, pit-bull-like resolve. Acid has a similar effect, except your teeth tingle tantalizingly even before you, if instead under the influence of amphetamines, would have loosened them from the jawbone. So, you commence to clack them lightly together, and on contact, they seem to conduct the tingly electric current emanating from the big brain starting to wiggle and writhe nearby, elsewhere in your skull. And, as you slowly separate your choppers, or bring them nearly back together, uppers seem to repel lowers, as if like poles of a magnet. (I bet that happens even if you have ceramic, not metallic, fillings. It would be interesting to see what would happen if old people did acid: What about when they take their dentures out at night? Remember that old novelty toy, the wind-up clattering teeth? The idea must have come from somewhere ...)
This “electric teeth” phenomenon could occupy you for hours if not for the other things that begin to happen. These “other things” represent the transformation of perceptual distortions limited to one’s own body, into ones that start to involve the outside world. (Though these also start to raise the old question, left unanswered by most people back in infancy, and forgotten, as seemingly obvious: Where does my “self” end and the “outside world” begin? On acid, perceptually, the question regains some fascination, if not urgency ...)
One of these effects is “trails”--stubbornly persistent after-images of things in motion. Such as your arms--looking like they’re still where they were at the same time they appear to be where they now are (and at all points in between)--which you may begin constantly waving across your field of vision, watching the “trails.” If otherwise supple, you may be able to trick sober observers into thinking you’re practicing belly-dancing, with its accompanying, meaningful hand movements, while you’re actually watching “trails.” And even if you’re not too supple, and don’t fool anyone, this still might be good exercise.
(See Appendix A for a discussion of the phamacological basis of “trails” and other perceptual distortions caused by LSD, which occupies the receptor sites of the inhibitory neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain’s synapses. See Appendix B for what this implies about modern-day SSRI-type antidepressants, and how the confident social functioning they promote in many patients represents the opposite pole from profound insight into the nature of the Self and a mystical attunement with the Tao. In so many words, Prozac is firmly at odds with dedicated navel-gazing.)
As for this story, you may be worrying that not much hell has broken loose yet, and it is already almost, oh ... about 7 p.m. on The Day All Hell Broke Loose. That’s all right, it’s about to.
What happened was that my dinnertime absence triggered some implacable calling around to my friends’ houses by my Mom. She finally called Jennifer’s, where Tina informed her that I was there. This betrayal is distressing; given my condition, she could at least have informed her that I was not all there. Actually, I think the news was that I had been there; then I had walked over to Stan’s, and was picked up by my Mom en route back to Jennifer’s--this made all the easier by the fact that walking the black asphalt road had begun to seem like slogging though wet but shifting sand, the way the novel, geometrically shifting composition of the paved surface seemed to be trying to convert the substance of my tennis shoes likewise, to absorb them into itself. So, when my mom drove up, I couldn’t get away very fast, and she got me into the car.
(The “crystalline, geometric” thing is another characteristic perceptual effect that, fortunately, is there to take over when the novelty of “trails” may begin to wear off. That “crystalline, geometric” appearance that all surfaces begin to take on, at the same time renders everything as seemingly alive, organically interconnected, so that boundaries between things seem less significant. And, ordinarily nondescript things can become intricately beautiful. At Jennifer’s for instance, the wall-to-wall blue carpeting with yellow stains of dog pee here and there appeared like a splendid Oriental carpet--and their dog wasn’t even a Pekingese (much less a Shar-Pei or Shih-Tsu), but rather a regular old American Standard poodle.
With everything also pulsing, shimmering, undulating and so on, this is when things--such as your face in the mirror--can seem to the ill-prepared to be melting or morphing into Yourself As an Old Man, or a decaying corpse, or your cousin Joey who everybody used to say you looked so much like, while pinching both your cheeks. This is a good time to try NOT to freak out. It’s not OK to punch a feeble old aunt just because she’s pinching your cheek, no matter how much a painful pinch interferes with your cheek’s organic oneness with the All. (A warning, though: In this condition, when you may begin to feel “one” with Joey, or that you really can’t tell where you end and Outer Reality begins--neither of these realizations is conducive to acing midterm exams.)
Upon arriving home, I was ushered into my parents’ bedroom, where my Dad was waiting, kind of irritated, I suppose. His blood pressure, barely controlled at the best of times, was pounding in my supersenses. His face appeared to me livid, bloated with blood, like a rotting tomato filled with noxious gases and about to burst. “Nice berry-face, Dad!” I thought. At least, I think I only thought it, though he then lashed out at me, knocking off my glasses. I picked them back up and put them on, inarticulately indicating I had something of great importance to say. This at least forestalled further blows. I don’t think my Dad really wanted to hit me; he was just acting out the pre-programmed robot-like motions of a straight, unevolved mortal, so my Buddha-nature showered him invisibly with my compassion.
Thus, we all became aware of the futility of the interview, and I was allowed to go to the kitchen for the supper they had saved for me, oh boy! I was transfixed for a while, gazing at the awesomeness of the last few bits of soap suds valiantly hanging in there against the ravages of grease in the hamburger griddle, soaking in the sink. Then I sat down to contemplate the hamburger. Every sensation--biting, salivating, chewing and swallowing--was greatly magnified. Occasionally, even flavor wormed its way into my consciousness amid all the other, preoccupying sensations, like an orgasm achieved in haste, and accomplished despite an uncomfortable position.
That hamburger seemed to last forever. Not that I wanted it to.
I went and started running a bath, whereupon my Mom called me back into their bedroom. She handed me a book for parents about drug abuse and pointed to a paragraph about LSD and suicide. Somehow, though, I must have conveyed the incorrigible joy I took in being alive and that my “lightness of being” was entirely bearable, so they let me take my bath while they went on preparing for a party they were going out to.
In the bath, I again exulted and mourned the desperate travails of the suds against the grime, seeing in it a metaphor for all wordly, Darwinian struggles, and happy to be transcendent over all such petty, temporal concerns even as my trip was hitting the downhill slide. So it didn’t matter to me how water-puckered my hands and feet were by the time I got out of the bath; if it meant I was actually, physically regressing into Salamander Man or Toad Boy, then that was just my karmic fate. Was it not?
I think my little brother Sam wisely avoided me the rest of the evening, and my sister was out having her own thrills somewhere, having earned them by participating in the family dinner at the appointed hour. But my grandmother, who was living with us at the time, cornered me in the hall. “Why can’t you be a good boy?” she wailed, crying. “I will be, Gram,” I said, hugging her reassuringly--yet with the emotional remoteness of my amphibious nature.
A little later, I felt human enough to hop across the street to Nobby’s. Even though the LSD was now quickly wearing off, I was able to enjoy observing the trails, the persistent parabolas left by the ping-pong ball, as Nobby and his dad, Nobby Senior, played a couple of games.
I stepped up to play against Mr. Riedy, but my confidence that literally being able to visualize the ball’s trajectory would give me an insuperable competitive edge was sorely misplaced.

Editorial that got me fired from managing the city of Maricopa's weekly paper (Aug-Sept '06, 60-hour-a-week job, while also producing The Messenger)

2006-11-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

I go there in my mind

I just read a column in another local publication, titled “There’s no way that just happened!” This was a religion column, and — beyond a number of the doctrinal and hortatory points it made — one of the notable things about it was the number of words printed in all capital letters. (Now, I’m sure this was completely intentional. We sometimes hear the advice as to e-mail etiquette, “Don’t type in all caps, it looks like you’re yelling.” Here, I’m sure that was the intended effect: This pastor was writing as if delivering a sermon, and at various points in that sermon, I know he would be rather worked up and joyously enthusiastic, and he wanted you to feel that, even while reading quietly to yourself. And I did feel it.)
The other thing notable about his column, though, is that, starting with its title, it takes the opposite view from the one in an essay I recently wrote for my evangelical Jewish friend, who lives in Washington. D.C. Yes, you heard me, this is a right-wing, evangelical Jew (no, not a “messianic Jew,” not one of those so-called “Jews for Jesus”). He’s an avid supporter of “intelligent design,” and of President Bush, along with all of his policies (except his refusing to veto excessive spending). He’s also virulently anti-“choice,” considers Jack Abramoff an upstanding fellow, says liberals and the New York Times are all a bunch of liars promoting a radically secular agenda, etc., etc.
He and I have been arguing over a number of these issues, especially evolution, ID and scientific vs. Biblical explanations for things, via e-mail for about 5 years now.
Side note: Interestingly, this friend and I go back to the 7th grade, and in that era, there was no particular clue he would turn out to be a right-wing wacko. Within certain margins, he seemed quite normal, including being normally rebellious. He introduced me to some good rock albums when I first joined a record club. He also sold me his electric guitar. In the 8th grade, we got sent to the principal’s office for gambling on the school bus. (We were just playing gin and Ohell, for a half-cent a point. Is that gambling?! I ask you.) We tried growing pot out at his once-reprobate-bachelor Dad’s old babe-lair cabin in the woods … just to name a few mutual, harmless adolescent exploits. (Actually, speaking of pastors, visiting him at college once, a preacher’s daughter seduced me at a frat party. Dating her later, I took her out to said cabin one weekend. “David, is this wrong?” she drawled, apparently in shock at the now non-drunken, premeditated brazenness of our trysting.)
Back to bizness. Well, I had a brainstorm recently and figured I might finally be able to explain the correctness of evolution to my old friend — to everyone, in fact — in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Like the reverend’s column I just read, it has to do with what’s more likely: improbable things happening by blind, random chance, or, alternatively, “on purpose”? The idea is so easy, so universally comprehensible, I even sent it to Newsweek as a “My Turn” column. Still waiting to hear back on that. In the meantime, I offer it here, where lesser renown and notoriety, or even pillorying may await me:

The proof is now available. Kind of like with profound mathematical and physics theories, I can now prove the veracity of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design “theory” by way of a thought experiment.
In doing this, I think I am emulating the ID proponents. They construct thought experiments that “prove” ID by showing it defies common sense to think certain things in nature could happen by chance; therefore they must have come about due to an underlying, purposeful mind--probably God, but who knows? It could be those aliens who left the monoliths around littering the solar system, in order to further our evolution from dumb, doomed australopithecines to aggressive, therefore thriving, hominids (and beyond!).
Now, in response, scientists tend to come up with points that get around the IDers’ objections to evolution. I’m not going to go into those back-and-forths. I will instead comment on how philosophers of science--and without having to know much actual science either--can also identify the fallacies in IDers’ thinking, at a more fundamental level.
For instance, a few months ago, one of those liberal-secular New York Times contributors pointed out that one reason ID seems appealing as an explanation is because people basically have trouble truly grasping the immensity of time and space--and, I would add, the amazingly fertile hubbub in the realm of the very small and fast. In other words, if people other than cosmologists, subatomic physicists, geologists, microbiologists and so on could really get their heads around how zillions of events (most of them leading to nothing much interesting), over huge spans of time, at a minuscule, frantic scale and pace could and have led and do lead to all observable natural phenomena (even the most complex and autonomous, such as most “higher” animals, and many people), they would have much less problem allowing the explanatory power of evolution.
By contrast, since many people have very little imagination concerning scientific concepts, and limited ability to hold several abstractions in mind long enough to connect them into an intellectual framework, they think a number of what I consider superstitious, pseudo-explanations for things are more likely, and simpler. But pushing the question of complexity back one step to a Mind capable of coming up with nature’s forms and processes doesn’t really explain anything, even if it might perchance be true. That’s probably why the Founding Fathers were Deists, if by it they meant that a God may be the “First Mover,” but the way in which it then all works out over the eons is a fascinating subject for scientific inquiry, not faith-based nostrums. (Nate also disputes what he calls the “propaganda” that says the Founders were Deists and promoted “separation of church and state.” Oy vey, vas ist dis mishugahss?)
So, back to my thought experiment:
I have a concept called, “Couldn’t have done that if you tried.” [Editor’s note: See, there’s the contrast with the pastor’s title, “There’s no way that just happened.”] You know, like when you toss a piece of trash at the wastebasket and it happens to perch precariously on the edge, just barely teetering there (maybe with the help of the wall--but it’s still pretty cool, and highly unlikely). Or something else, say a slightly crumpled envelope, playing card or piece of a box, or a dollar bill (or, for the less flush, a quarter): you toss it or drop it, and it lands--and stands or leans--on its side or in the slot in a way that you could never have achieved in a million years if you were trying. I’m sure everyone can come up with their own examples. (Many of mine have to do with throwing something and it balancing improbably somehow--must be my inferiority complex about how I’ve never been able to get a basketball anywhere near the basket, let alone propped on the rim, against the backboard. By contrast, my old friend was pretty good with a ball, and still has a nickname associated with some player named Hal _____, number 15 …)
But I digress (again). The bottom line is, my thought experiment (really more just a notion, actually) proves that evolution is correct. The most amazing things happen by chance, more amazing than what tends to happen by design, and the more amazing, the more likely it is that it couldn’t have happened “on purpose.” (OK, so it’s just a variation on the old saw, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”)
Same for evolution: Only chance could account for all the amazing occurrences that have led to all the complex and bizarre forms we know in nature. Such as Michael Jackson. (Ta-dum.) No way anyone--even a God, or a super-brainy and unaccountably benevolent alien--could have done it all on purpose. That would defy the odds, for sure.
So, now you’ve been given some exposure to simple, common-sense based, easy-to-understand formulas for the opposing viewpoints on a major issue of our time. Which side do you come down on? Let us know.
— Or, maybe, you happen to have landed kind of on edge, improbably balanced on an ear, shoulder and hip-bone, not even immediately apt to fall over one way or the other. But if you write to tell me about it, I have only one request: Avoid all-capital-letters.
THANKS!!!

--David Tell
© 2006 Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

From our Nov. 20 print issue: Encanto historic designation controversy doesn't deter Council

2006-11-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Council OKs Encanto HD extension
Overrules citizen planners, to match National Historic Register boundary for area

By David Tell, Messenger Editor
© 2006 Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Following two seeming setbacks, the proposed historic zoning overlay for an additional area of the Encanto-Palmcroft neighborhood was approved by City Council on Nov. 1.
The proposal affected a set of vintage “garden apartments” at 1302 W. McDowell as well as current and former single family homes between 11th and 13th avenues along the north side of McDowell Road. It was voted down by the Encanto Village Planning Committee and city Planning Commission, which are citizens advisory bodies whose decisions are not binding on Council.
The proposal has been controversial in and beyond the neighborhood, largely due to a proposed upscale condo project that would be built in place of the apartments, which had been a crime and blight nuisance to adjacent residents, requiring regular police attention.
The overlay, which would extend the city’s protective historic zoning to match that of the National Register of Historic Places’ more honorific boundaries for the district, imposes a one-year moratorium on any demolition and requires an approved plan for any replacement structures, in order to harmonize development with the adjacent historic homes. Adjacent residents also included in the overlay opposed it for fear that the problem apartment property would continue to languish.
Opponents have also objected to the unusual means by which the overlay was initiated—at the suggestion of Council’s Housing Neighborhoods and Historic Preservation subcommittee last spring and then by the full Council—rather than originating with the Historic Preservation Commission. However, city HP Officer Barbara Stocklin has pointed out that ordinance allows for that route of initiation, as well as other paths for an overlay proposal. In addition, while the commission has a policy of requiring 75 percent owner support to initiate an overlay, it is not bound by that policy, nor is Council.
Nonetheless, apartments property owner Scott Haskins, a California developer and art conservator, said the overlay approval is “disappointing,” and that he is evaluating all legal options for overturning Council’s decision.
“City Council’s basis for evaluating the situation comes from a completely different direction than the village planning committee or the Planning Commission,” Haskins said. “The Encanto Village Planning Committee looks at the benefits to the village and at issues relative to property rights. The Planning Commission looks at property rights and development in the city and considers also legal issues that they feel are important to planning issues. City Council looks at it from a political point of view: ‘Who needs what and who is going to vote with whom?’ Council refused to recognize the validity of the opinions of those other two bodies,” Haskins said. “And the Council completely ignored the preponderance of opinion of the neighborhood. The neighborhood was overwhelmingly opposed.
“Council ignored all that,” Haskins said. “Their issue is heightened with the passing of Prop 207. 207 underlines the issue in the neighborhood. According to City Council, it is handing over my project to HP. HP doesn’t have any development guidelines, only an arbitrary loosey-goosey guidance they would like to attempt to impose or oversee the project with. If they listened to the minority neighborhood activists, the property is going to be only two stories tall and a lot less units. That’s half the value. Council said ‘We don’t care about the R-5 zoning and the property rights, we’re going to rezone it.’ Or attempt to.”
Haskins’ plans are for four-story structures.
Proposition 207 is a citizens initiative passed in Arizona, as in several other states, a couple weeks ago, promulgated by property rights activists in the wake of the Supreme Court’s controversial “Kelo” eminent domain decision last year. It allows people to sue governments for land use actions they believe have diminished their property’s value.
Whether Haskins could sue under the new law, given that his property was rezoned before Prop. 207 was passed by voters, is not clear. Larry Felix, an attorney in the city’s Law Department, said for a law to be able to be applied retroactively, it usually has to explicitly state that is is intended to so apply.
“My project should be the poster boy for 207,” Haskins said. “There’s a question about that [its applicability to his case]. The city vote doesn’t go into effect for 30 days. Of course I’m having my attorney look into that. City Council has to go back over their resolutions and vote them into play.”
However, Haskins’ timetable could be confounded by the fact that the clock also doesn’t start ticking on Prop. 207’s effective date until after the public vote has been “canvassed” and then certified by the governor, a process that also tends to take several weeks.
Haskins said there could be a whole host of legal issues giving him opportunity to overturn the rezoning. As an example, “We believe the city submitted the whole proposal improperly or illegally,” he said. “Statutes say for City Council to put into motion a historic overlay the way they did, it requires the signature of at least one property owner—which they did not get. There are three or four or five [other possible legal] points.”
In addition, Haskins, who has retained not only local attorneys on his behalf, is also working with Choice Zoning Group, a firm specializing in community relations related to land use issues. The Midtown Messenger has been told it is formerly owned by District 5 Councilman Claude Mattox, who sold it to Robert Rakowski. Whether or not connected to Choice Zoning’s efforts, a column by Laurie Roberts in the Arizona Republic in September characterized apartments as “garbage,” not historic; and a local radio talk show reportedly used the case recently as a take-off for a wider harangue about property rights. Mattox and District 8 Councilman Mike Johnson were the two “no” votes on the overlay, vs. five in favor. District 2 Councilwoman Peggy Neely was off the dais.
Haskins feels his case touches a public nerve more broadly in Phoenix.
“I’m in the process of initiating a referendum,” he said. “We believe City Council has acted improperly and not in the best interest of property rights. We believe this is an issue the city [populace] would like to know more about and vote on.”
Haskins seems to have in mind a referendum effort seeking to overturn Council’s decision in a citywide election, similar to when Biltmore area neighborhood groups and others mounted a challenge to Council’s raising the height limitations for the area of 24th Street and Camelback to accommodate developers’ plans for the area.
Haskins was asked about longtime Fairview Place resident Marge McCue’s comments in the October Midtown Messenger that his apartment plans seem “pie-in-the-sky” and his projected value per square foot seems unrealistic. Her remarks were based on a presentation of his plans made at Encanto Clubhouse at Encanto Park in September.
“She’s not a developer,” he retorted. “If you’ve got comments from other developers and people who invest their money in the improvement of a city, I’ll be glad to listen. I can get opinions all day from people who don’t know squat.”
Asked whether it is specially advantageous for him to be developing property in Arizona, where Prop 207 has passed, rather than in California, where a similar initiative failed, Haskins replied, “I don’t know if there’s any benefit [to being a California developer investing in Arizona], but the ‘Socialist Republic of California’ would of course follow that path. California sides with the rights of the renters. They pass all these social programs, add all the taxes to the businesses. There’s a completely different social atmosphere in California.”
Encanto-Palmcroft resident G.G. George heads the Encanto Citizens Association, through which she has fought for the neighborhood’s historic status and other issues for decades. Critics attribute the initiation and passage of the overlay at least partly to her connection with District 7 Councilman Doug Lingner, who represents the area, as well as most of the areas containing the city’s residential historic districts. Of the latest outcome, “I’m very pleased that the Council saw the precedent, the policy that the city has established and of course the value to Palmcroft of those historic apartments,” George said. “The Encanto Citizens Association’s official position is that the mayor and Council acted correctly to align our Phoenix Property Registry boundaries with the National Register boundaries.”
The apartments in the overlay area have been identified by the HP Office as historically significant, as “first-generation buildings on land that was part of the original Palmcroft plat.” Other, similar “garden apartment” complexes have been preserved for reuse, and—in Scottsdale, for instance—are specifically being documented for designation as a significant historic style of their era.
Haskins’ pending hardship appeal of the previous denial of a demolition permit for the apartments has been canceled, as moot under the rezoning. “If he wants to file demolition economic hardship request, he will have to start over again,” Stocklin said. “There’s a separate process for filing under the ordinance, given that the HP zoning is now no longer pending but is permanent.” Haskins, asked whether he would pursue that route parallel to his other efforts, said he hadn’t decided.
In addition “There is the possibility of the property owners filing a ‘regulatory takings’ claim, within 30 days of when City Council approved the minutes from the meeting when the action was taken,” Stocklin said. “We hear that they’re planning on filing one.” She said there was a regulatory takings claim filed a few years ago in a Garfield neighborhood case. It is unclear whether that is one of the avenues Haskins was referring to among his legal options, or an additional one.
According to attorney Felix, a regulatory takings case has long been a possible legal remedy, but he said success in bringing a claim tends to require a showing that a regulatory action reduced a property’s value to zero, or at least to a merely nominal value.

HP Commission initiates Oakland 'Triangle' zoning overlay

2006-11-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

On Nov. 20, the city's Historic Preservation Commission formally initiated the historic designation process for the so-called Triangle area of the Oakland/University Park neighborhood. Bounded roughly by Roosevelt Street, 7th Avenue and Grand Avenue, the proposed historic addition includes 100 buildings. Sixty property owners submitted petitions supporting the initiation; 24 owners opposed it; 16 had not responded by the hearing. The action means a stay of demolition will be in effect for the area as the proposal goes before the remaining public bodies that must weigh in on it. For a complete update, look for the Dec. 18 issue of The Midtown Messenger.

Gibson's 'Apocalypto': Stay tuned ...

2006-11-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

Opening Dec. 8, this much anticipated release from the troubled but prominent actor/filmmaker is indeed worthy of the hype--if you don't mind watching a bunch of aboriginals running around above subtitles. To prepare to better understand this film (and our review, to come), pick up and read a copy of Daniel Quinn's "novel" Ishmael this week.

Sun Merc Update: No update yet!

2006-11-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

Downtown Voices Coalition secretary Beatrice Moore lets the community know: No ruling from the judge yet out of October 2 oral arguments.
Superior Court Judge Peter heard defendant's motion to dismiss and plaintiff's motion for summary judgment in the suit, which charges that Council acted contrary to ordinance and without sufficient authority when it approved development plans for the historic Chinese-America produce warehouse in December 2005. The plans call for an 11-story structure to be built atop the city-owned, historic designated warehouse, which is the last intact vestige of the city's former Chinatown. The city's Historic Preservation (HP) Office and HP Commission objected to the plans in the form the developer offered, but the agencies were overruled by the Council's vote. In a broadcast e-mail from Moore on Nov. 29, she exhibited patience with the judge, acknowledging that the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly.

Phoenix film critics debate new Aronofsky film

2006-11-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Avant garde filmmaker Darren Aronofsky releases his first film since "Requiem for a Dream." Read critic David Tell's series of takes and exchanges on what he feels is already a widely misunderstood film.

Upon viewing the advance screening:
I’m a pretty mystical guy, and I left the theater after seeing “The Fountain” almost identifying with the people who, nearly 40 years ago (wrongly) thought the latter third of “2001: A Space Odyssey” was a boring, inexplicable, pretentious head trip. The basis for the feeling, though, is that Darren Aronofsky’s latest film--his first since the awesome “Requiem for a Dream” six years ago--shares pacing, portentousness and psychedelic production design with the “trippy” adventure past the moons of Jupiter in “2001.” But looking at “The Fountain” from Marci’s probable perspective, I can see it’s really about love, joy, priorities, imagination, and how it really doesn’t matter whether we both fit in the tub together very well. Very few people are going to “get” this film, and they’re probably going to be pretty disappointed for the most part. Because, despite the billings, it’s not really about a conquistador who finds the “Tree of Life” (or Fountain of Youth) and lives to encounter his lady love again in a future age. That part of the story is analogous to the parallel literary plot in Neil Labute’s “Possession,” and, as in that film, the “real” story takes place in the present, and the other narrative reflects it to make a larger parable. In this case, it’s about not turning death into something it isn’t: either a release from the prison of the body or a disease to be conquered. It’s about life, and therefore about accepting death as an ending of our living connections with our loved ones. (“Eternal life,” in this context, is about being part of the eternal cycle of life, death and rebirth [though not as the same entity]--and acceptance of that reality.) And, as in “Possession,” “The Fountain,” putting things in context and prioritization, is cautionary about love: In that film, part of the point was that women ought not to over-idealize love at risk of exclusively feminizing it, leaving no real, authentic role and place for a man. Here, the point is that men’s’ tendency is to “practicalize” love, which tips it too far into the masculine realm and sensibility.

Response from a correspondent:
"The way you describe this it ALMOST sounds like a "chick" flick. That leaves me out! lol"

"Campaigning" message by David to fellow film critics after viewing a screener DVD of the film, a second look:
Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS) colleagues:
After re-viewing "The Fountain," as well as reading additional reviews, I am campaigning for it in a limited sense, convinced that Aronofsky is perhaps the closest current thing to a Kubrick heir, in at least two ways: the limited output and apparent careful crafting of the visual experience, and being widely misunderstood. (I.e., the possible pretentiousness and pseudo-profundity some people will find in the film.)
Even Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal in last Friday's edition succumbs to the red herring that the film, at its topmost narrative level, is about a man who lives across the centuries after finding the Tree of Life (or Fountain of Youth). My wife, viewing the screener (couldn't attend the press screening) also thought it was quite apparent that the "eternal life" thing is not what publicists and marketers are making it out to be--not even as a superficial understanding of "what happens" in the film.
Pretty clearly, the sole "real" story takes place in our present, with Tom as the cancer researcher and Izzy his wife dying of the brain tumor. Of the other two stories and incarnations of the characters, the "conquistador" one is simply the literary analog and subtext, underlining and explicating the themes of the present-day story. This is a little like the main story vs. the literary backstory in Neil LaBute's "Possession." Then, in the third aspect of the film, the Hugh Jackman character in the "snowglobe" is something like his spiritual self, undergoing psychic evolution after, presumably, having been killed by the Mayan guardian of the Tree of Life.
This latter, "spiritual" Hugh Jackman, in turn, serves as a metaphoric explication (and "completion") of Izzy's book, "The Fountain": In the present story, she has urged him to "finish it," and this phase of the film shows how he reaches that "ending": by evolving, even involuntarily, past an exploitative, self-serving understanding of what death is and what "life everlasting" really means, toward acquiescence in being part of the cycle of life, death and rebirth (though not as one's same conscious self: as part of the broader life-cycles of intertwined Nature). This "ending," this realization is also fulfilled in the present story by High Jackman dropping the sycamore seed ball (or whatever species of tree) into the ground over Izzy's grave.
I hate to expound and pontificate as if posting on an imDb message board (well, OK, no, I don't--it's what I do ...), but I feel ceasing to misunderstand this film so profoundly as many people are doing is essential to beginning to appreciate it. Like "2001: A Space Odyssey," it is a kind of masterpiece, even if not always a conventionally appealing and readily cognizable cinematic experience.
In this way I am hoping to help rescue it from being overlooked for whatever awards or accolades it may rightly be considered for.

Response from a fellow PFCS critic, who may remain anonymous unless she wishes otherwise:
It's an interesting argument regarding the meaning of the "snowglobe" parts of the film. But if this were only part of Izzy's fiction that Tom was completing, there is no explanation for the flashbacks and the visions of Izzy with him in the globe. Tom wouldn't have written those into the story to complete Izzy's book. And if the conquistador had truly been killed by the Mayan guardian, his body wouldn't have entered to find the tree of life; only his spiritual self would have been able to do that.
The evidence in the film suggests that it is indeed a future Tom in the "snowglobe". It is implied that his research went on to conquer death, which is why he is there in the future, travelling through space with a technology that we cannot imagine (what miracles of science could be discovered if the world's greatest minds didn't die off?). Further evidence that this is him and not part of the conquistador story is the fading tattoo around his ring finger, a marking which he creates shortly after Izzy's death. He then continues to tattoo his body to mark time, not unlike the rings of a tree, in parallel with his transfigured lover.
It also shows there is a spiritual side of Tom that has chosen to believe the parts of Izzy's conversation that suggest she might still live on through a tree planted over her grave. He takes pieces of her bark as a sacrament to keep this faith alive (a way of taking her inside him), and his destination is the dying star which she suggested was the place where life is reborn; although she accepted death, he is re-interpreting her tale of Mayan legend as a means of bringing her back to life as he remembered her.
I believe the point of the film is that the search for longevity is an unnecessary detour in the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
Throughout the film we are wondering about that tree -- is it the actual tree of life, from which Tom was able to discover the secret of longevity? Or is it Izzy, transformed according to the story she told him earlier? I believe the answer to that is found at the end of the film, when Tom buries the seed in the snow above Izzy's grave. It is the only explanation for why that particular scene was placed AFTER the scene where Tom's future body was obliterated in the nebula.
At first it seemed ironic that only after Tom's death did the tree spring back into full bloom, but I think it was meant to illustrate that both Tom and Izzy were reborn within the tree in that instant.

David's response:
I am glad I have engaged you in a thoughtful exchange over this film. I don't presume to know you well, but I think I know you well enough to understand that I won't be able to change your thinking!
However, your points notwithstanding, I also still disagree. I suppose there could be evidence for both interpretations; however, I think mine requires fewer assumptions and less bending things in the film out of shape to make them fit.
In my interpretation, everything that happens after the Mayan guard swings his flaming sword at the conquistador should be taken as reflecting Tom's (decreasing?) misunderstanding of the issues surrounding life and death. His seeming to walk past the guard to discover the tree, tattooing himself to track time, the fading tattoo of the ring, Izzy's appearances are all instances of his psyche's illusorily struggling toward the truth--e.g., Izzy there is remembered, in her chiding him over his failing to pay attention to the here and now while she was alive and he could have gone to enjoy the first snow with her.
In the end, the fact that the tree sap leads to his absorption into vegetative life is, again, perhaps his actual* dissolution into the all, as well as a fulfillment of the humaner, wiser points Izzy's book is tending toward. (As in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," you could assume all the time he spends in the snowglobe actually takes place in the few moments after his death by the Mayan's sword before life leaves him--subjectively expanded to seem like years or ages to him. In my view, beginning with his striding toward the tree of life, it is all his subjective illusion, though an evolving one.)
The very fact that you acknowledge his "snowglobe" is rising to the Mayans' nebula of death and rebirth should actually lead you to lean more toward my view, it seems to me. That fact of the film is something I forgot to mention in my earlier campaigning e-mail as adducing toward my interpretation.) To think he is just actually, physically traveling there in a little terrarium with the miracle tree (with Izzy popping in in the garb she was wearing in the "present" story, chiding him with the same chastisements), just seems overly credulous and uncritical to me. It's all "really" just part of his "soul's" awakening before his reabsorption into the All. ("Death is the road to awe.")
Whatever the facts or presumptions raised in the film about the miraculous effects and additional outcomes of the tree-sourced compound in the lab, I think that is another red herring; I don't think we are supposed to end up believing it pans out. Again, think about his ring: its whereabouts are never revealed. The point is not where it ended up, the point is that he put it aside, actually and symbolically forgetting that his priority should have been to spend time with Izzy in the time she had left, not to leave her, trying to beat the clock to save her.
Anyway, again, I don't expect you to agree with all this, but thanks for responding. I hope it at least gives you an alternative perspective from which to realize the professed theme of eternal life in the film also has other ways of being understood, perhaps toward a different wisdom. And again, I don't think the film is as likable if taken as much at face value, interpreting the "snowglobe" Tommy as a future literal and living instance of the "historical" conquistador.
*I use "actual" advisedly, as the "snowball" Tommy is merely an extension of both the fictional conquistador (as well, indirectly, of the present-day researcher Tom), in my view.
P.S. Oh, finally, re-reading your first paragraph, I don't think Tom necessarily literally finishes writing Izzy's book and I didn't mean to say or imply that. He "completes" it in the sense of understanding it, and fulfilling its point and meaning, in realizing his errors, and planting the sycamore seed, etc. So, again, no literalistic explanations of what "happens" in the snowglobe are needed to correctly interpret the film.

The Midtown Messenger

Fake News Dept.: Local view on Obama poetry slam (or jam. whatever)

Branding the city: ‘I Heart Phoenix’

‘Stated income’ loans: Just a way to house homeless!

Reviews pre-'09 Oscars--read 'em and weep

Fake News, the Politics of Punctuation Dept.

The VIP view--not as press; Marci's bank was a sponsor

Almost Famous Film Fest hosts real celebrities

Fake News Dept. - 'World Mayor' Contest's local twist

Setback in campaign finance disclosure realm

Ad dollars unspent or misspent till lately

MM Daily Dispatch

MM Daily Dispatch

MM Daily Dispatch

Rights group assails exploitation of baby greens in salads

MM Daily Dispatch

MM Daily Dispatch

Midtown Messenger's District 7 City Council endorsement

Hometown publisher, international profile

Independence Dies When a Newspaper Owner Has One Goal—ProfitJuly 19, 2007; Page A13

The Roots of Editorial 'Independence'

The Literary Offenses of ... some obscure scribbler

The things you'd never know if it were up to our local MSM

New England native scores in Valley music scene

Ruth Ann Marston seeks Dist. 7 Council seat

Archaeologist: 'Apocalypto' more or less accurate

A Past That Makes Us Squirm

Poor William's Almanack 12-30-06

HP Weekly Report, Dec. 26 2006

A few capsule (and lengthier) film reviews

Poor William's Almanack - 12/24/06

Believing in Santa—and surnits

Do You Believe in Surnits?

Pearls before ... peers

PFCS 2006 film awards announced

Film reviews that didn't make the Dec. 18 issue

Encanto Historic District update

From our Nov. 20 print issue: Prop. 207 passes. Who's to blame?

'Apocalypto' review taken a step further

New Garfield infill housing unveiled

Poor William's Almanack - 12/10/06

Ode to a Civic Structure – With a Phoenician Turn

Coronado neighborhood announces its first Visual Award, to a 1925 home

Read this preview chapter of a new memoir, promised in the review of "Running With Scissors" in our Nov. 20 print issue

Editorial that got me fired from managing the city of Maricopa's weekly paper (Aug-Sept '06, 60-hour-a-week job, while also producing The Messenger)

From our Nov. 20 print issue: Encanto historic designation controversy doesn't deter Council

HP Commission initiates Oakland 'Triangle' zoning overlay

Gibson's 'Apocalypto': Stay tuned ...

Sun Merc Update: No update yet!

Phoenix film critics debate new Aronofsky film

Independence Dies When a Newspaper Owner Has One Goal—Profit
July 19, 2007; Page A13