Phoebe Kate

As many of you know, I’m a big city New South girl who has resided for eight years now in a NC coastal town with a population of about 3,000.  While I’ve yet to reconcile myself to having no museums, no symphony, no ballet, no art galleries, no fine dining and no Bloomingdale’s within 250 miles of me, I have to admit that the locals are an unexpectedly clever crowd.  To wit: the names of beauty shops in the area — and if you put them in the right order, you get an old-fashioned Bible Belt sermon on sin and redemption told in salon-ese:  

You start by Making Waves, then you Do It With Style and experience Sensations and Shear Bliss from Head to Toe, but oh sister, you’re on the downward path and the slippery slope.  You end up doing the Flipp Teaze on Craven Street and you want to Curl Up & Dye, but then you have an epiphany and get A New Visage, so now you’re on the Hair Way to Heaven to Be One with Jesus.

Hallelujah.  And have a good hair day, y’all.

–phoebe

Okay, I know the Bible says it’s the meek who’ll do that, but after reading a recent study out of Stanford University, I’m placing my bet on the worriers.

Seems that scientists have identified the “worry spot” in the brain.  It’s called the anterior insula, an artifact of our early reptilian heritage that monitors or senses imminent danger.  In certain people, the anterior insula is unusually active and produces “anticipatory worry” or dread of something bad happening in the future.  The fear is often free-floating and not necessarily connected to any particular anxiety triggers or foreboding situations. 

While this hardly seems like a psychological advantage, researchers did make a remarkable discovery.  People with a hyperactive anterior insula test out as being excellent managers of money and having “a higher fidelity when it comes to economic decisions.”  Maybe it’s fear of being poor that makes the worriers work their bucks to the best advantage, but in an economy like ours today, that’s definitely a critical survival skill — and one which so very many don’t seem to have these days.

It’s gratifying to read an article that vindicates us nervous Nellies and recasts us as financial gurus.  But the longer I live, the more I realize how absurd an activity worry is.  Statistics tell us that a whopping 99% of what we fear never occurs.  Obviously, if there’s something you can do to forestall a crisis or fix a problem, by all means do it.  But if there isn’t, worrying won’t change a thing…or so I keep telling myself.     

The other day, however, I had a curious thought.  What if all our nail-biting and knotted stomachs and paced floors and sleepless nights actually could alter things?  Would we really be pleased with the results?  

I’m not so sure…

If worry could keep ourselves and our loved ones safe and sound, no one would ever die.  Terrific! you say.  But is it really?  If we worried away all crises and problems, our mettle would never be tested or honed.  If we weren’t confronted with obstacles to overcome or challenges to tackle, we’d never develop new skills, deeper ways of thinking, different directions for our lives.  We’d plod on endlessly like the ponies on tethers at the  carnival kiddy ride.  Left on our own, do you really believe most of us would challenge ourselves or break new ground in our situations?  Oh, no no NO.  Challenge and change are much too risky propositions — why would anybody in their right mind choose them?  Without struggles, setbacks, disappointments and losses, we’d certainly save ourselves from frown lines, lost sleep, grief and the painful process of picking ourselves up and starting all over again  – but we’d also never evolve into better, braver, wiser, more competent and more compassionate people.  Instead, we’d go on as we were – unchallenged, unchanging, ignorant and in a profound state of emotional and spiritual retardation — forever and ever.    

Sounds like a living hell to me.

So will the worriers inherit the earth because of the financial prowess hotwired into their cranial worry spot?  Or maybe they will, simply because they suffered so much wishing that everything turns out well for everybody, they’ve merited some sort of recompense for all that unnecessary pain and anguish. 

–phoebe kate                         

While I do not support the Iraqi war, I do staunchly support our troops.  I reside in a burg sandwiched in between two military towns where the reality of the war casts its dark pall over everyday life.  As I drive down the road, I see convoys of troops being deployed.  I see the handmade signs and banners on the fences around the bases, welcoming back the fortunate who survived the experience.  In the restaurants and watering holes around here, there’s only one main topic of conversation — who’s being sent out, who’s coming home soon and who has died in action. 

It is reminiscent of the Vietnam War years, an era I remember all too well.  As it was in 1968, so it is in 2008: there’s little optimism, only grim acceptance, and no WWII rallying ’round the flag to make the world safe for democracy.  This war is not about that lofty ideal – and no one understands it better than the those who have to go to the frontline and their families who wait and pray for them at home.  It hardly came as a surprise to hear on this morning’s news that the suicide rate of GIs in Iraq is considered by experts to be shockingly high.  CNN reported that at least 150 “troops” had killed themselves, either in Iraq or after returning stateside. 

Since this war began, I’ve noticed that news reporters on every television channel have started to say “troop” instead of “soldier” when speaking about individuals in the Armed Forces.  We hear daily about 5 “troops” blown up or 30 “troops” lost in a skirmish.  It’s a grossly incorrect usage, of course. Troop is a collective noun referring to a specific battalion of soldiers.  A member of such a battalion is a “trooper.”  If the report today had said 150 troopers had committed suicide, I wouldn’t quibble.  But why is everybody in the media blatantly using the wrong word?  I can’t believe that TV talking heads with journalism degrees from A-list universities don’t know this elementary point of grammar.  And that all the newscasters, not just one or two, are making this flagrant mistake strikes me as very odd indeed.  It almost seems — well, deliberate. 

“Troop” is a conveniently impersonal word, befitting a group.  But when applied to single individuals, it effectively (though in a subtle way) strips him or her of humanity.  We see an anonymous unit, an dehumanized object in a uniform, a cog in a wheel, a nonentity.  A troop has no name, no face and no feelings, whether it be a thousand – or nowadays just one.  That 150 troops have committed suicide conjures no mental image for us.  It’s safe, sterile, detached.

Try using the word soldiers in that same sentence, however, and it suddenly gets a whole lot more personal. We’re reminded that except for the grace of God, it could be our dad or mom or brother or sister or friend in that uniform who was driven by circumstances beyond our imagining to end their own lives. It could even be us.  That changes the whole way in which we view the statistic. 

Does this major grammatical faux pas serve some ulterior motive to divorce us from the reality of  this war?  To objectify its victims to a point where they aren’t even real to the average citizen anymore?  With opposition to the war at all-time highs, is this just another clever method of damage control and management of public opinion until the next election when it conveniently becomes someone else’s problem?          

I don’t know.  All I know is what I hear.  And it just doesn’t sit right with me.

–phoebe kate               

After writing the previous blog about the death of this great film maker, I began to ponder about what exactly set him apart in a field not wanting for talent.  What made his movies so unforgettable that even 30 or 40 years later, they remain as vivid in your mind as if you saw them yesterday?

Undeniably, he worked with cream-of-the-crop scripts, but even the finest writing can be wrecked by mis-directed direction.  Pollack was always sensitive to the material he was working with.  Case in point: Tootsie.  A very funny script, to be sure, but it was a cinematic disaster waiting to happen, a potential candidate for the 10 Worst Films of the Year list.  In the hands of a less attuned director, it would have rapidly degenerated into an over-the-top, campy flop of a farce that squandered the talent (and ruined the rep) of its excellent actors.  Pollack never lost of sight of the movie’s underlying deeper themes or sacrificed the humanity and dignity of the characters for a cheap laugh.

Pollack also possessed an uncanny knack of inspiring great performances from every actor he worked with.  He took Jane Fonda, fresh from making a fool of herself in Barbarella, and turned her into a serious actress with They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Similarly, Barbra Streisand, known only for her amazing voice and comedic skills, delivered an outstanding dramatic performance in The Way We Were.  Three Days of the Condor transcended the thriller genre and became a character study when Pollack worked his magic with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.  Though she’s never turned in a slouchy performance in her life, Meryl Streep’s portrayal of the complex Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa stands out as arguably her finest role and best work on the screen.

Above all, Pollack respected his audience.  He always gave his best and we always got our money’s worth and a great deal more.  His films are finely crafted works – visually rich, fully realized thematically, thought-provoking and insightful pieces of cinematic art that have stood, and will stand, the test of time.

–phoebe kate    

The loss of a  prolific and prodigious talent like Sydney Pollack saddens me.  He directed and/or produced so many of my favorite films — and probably some of yours, too.  To name a few: The Swimmer (1968) based on John Cheevers’ stellar short story;  They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969);  The Way We Were (1973);  Three Days of the Condor (1975);  Absence of Malice (1981);  Tootsie (1982);  Out of Africa (1985); The Firm (1993);  Sense and Sensibility (1995);  Cold Mountain (2003);  and The Interpreter (2005).  His most recent movie, Recount, premiered on HBO on May 25th, the day before his death.  The name of Pollack associated with any film virtually assured my enjoyment.

Little wonder Pollack created movies I love.  He admired the same classic films that I do:  Casablanca, The Conformist, La Grande Illusion, The Leopard, The Seventh Seal and Sunset Boulevard.  He loved Citzen Kane, too.  (I’m sure I’d love it if I could just stay awake through it — tried a half-dozen times so far and still trying.  The first few minutes of the film invariably put me in a trance and send me deep into delta brain wave sleep.)

Pollack was also a marvelous actor — as well he should be, having studied at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse in NYC in the 1950s.  Who can forget his small but hilarious role as the agent of Dustin Hoffman’s character, the difficult actor Michael Dorsey, in Tootsie?  Nobody will work Dorsey in either Hollywood or New York.  Why?  Because while playing a beefsteak tomato in a commercial, Dorsey wouldn’t follow the script and sit down.  Dorsey:  “I couldn’t!  Beefsteak tomatoes don’t sit down!  It isn’t logical!”  Pollack as his agent: “Beefsteak tomatoes can’t move!  They don’t have any logic!”

Gotta love it.

I’ll really miss you, Sydney.  Who will makes movies for me (and for so many others) to love now?

–phoebe kate