all doc'd up

it's definitely a sign of summer that i spent almost the entire day watching documentaries on netflix with just a smattering of work done in between. woot! man, i am in trouble for getting my dissertation done. but i guess we all need a day (or two or three) of slacking every once in awhile. besides, i don't see the day as a total wash. i love documentaries! i love the insight they give into people's lives and the ways things in the world work, and how they drum up emotions about life from curiosity to empathy to indignation to appreciation. so here's three docs that i watched today.

the white stripes: under great white northern lights

mousybabe recommended this flick. can i just say that after watching it, i developed a huge crush on the creatively genius jack white? gosh, the reams of music footage from their 2007 canadian tour never bore whether it's jack thrashing violently on his guitar or singing a heartbreakingly beautiful version of "white moon" on the piano with meg beside him moved to tears. the relationship between jack and meg is a curious and touching thing to witness given their long history together. my favorite thing about meg? she's barely says a word, and everything she says is subtitled because she's so soft spoken! but the intense emotions she expresses during "white moon" belie a secret depth. "i'm quiet, what can i say?" meg says at one point in the film. at another point, jack's rejoinder to meg is: “quiet people—randy newman said short people got no reason to live. shit, he must have never met a quiet person.” ha. here's to quiet people!


the september issue: anna wintour and the making of vogue

it was fascinating to get a glimpse into the inner workings of vogue led by editor anna wintour, arguably the most powerful figure in fashion. wintour's demanding and exacting personality, bony stick-like but impeccably dressed figure, and signature dark sunglasses and short bob present an intimidating persona. the film follows wintour and her staff for eight months as they put together the september 2007 issue, the largest issue in vogue's history. the film conveys the art, creativity, risk and decisiveness that go into producing the fashion industry's monthly book of trends. but i think the most interesting parts of the film hint at how wintour's amazing influence and power and cool personality possibly mask subtle feelings of insecurity about her life, profession and industry. the first line of the film opens with wintour defending fashion and the fashion industry, and this theme recurs with even wintour's young daughter, who hopes to become a lawyer, expressing a bit of amusement at her mother's life work--perhaps the triviality of fashion in the greater scheme of things. but i think the film's simultaneous focus on grace coddington, vogue's creative director, points to the beauty and creativity in the field--something that surely should be celebrated. i loved how coddington, widely acknowledged as the greatest modern fashion stylist, showed true delight and pride in her beautifully styled photographs that filled almost the entirety of the september issue. the tension between wintour and coddington--business and art--throughout the film is a wonder to watch. take a peek at coddington's work here.


this emotional life, episode 1

i've been a volatile ball of emotions lately, so this pbs series hit home for me. the three-part series explores emotions, what they mean, and how we do and don't deal with them. the first series focuses on relationships between family, friends and significant others. it's a mix of personal stories of conflict and hope, and insightful tidbits from well-respected researchers studying interpersonal relationships. it's interesting to me how relationships can be studied down to a science. it makes me wonder what parts are just left up to the intangible, the unexplainable and maybe the will of God ... and what parts can be managed and made better on our own. but i guess, if anything good comes from us, maybe it's really from God anyway. anyway, here are some little lessons that i learned from watching:

• the nature of your parent's care can shape how you see and experience the world, e.g. trust and happiness
• loneliness is actually a feeling akin to hunger and thirst, and it's detrimental to our health and well being to be without relationships
• people try really hard to change themselves and accommodate others, but sometimes what's needed is just to listen to yourself and voice your own needs
• move toward conflict and not away from it, otherwise it seethes
• it is in conflict that we capture valuable differences in perspectives
• falling in love is easy, but staying in love takes work
• a powerful indicator of being able to maintain a relationship is the ability to convey care, understanding, validation, affection and humor even when dealing with conflict
• sex is a much bigger investment for women (as childbearers) than men, which cause men and women to seek different things in relationships
• two things that make relationships work are capitalization--getting excited about a partner's successes and building on them--and making life together exciting because couples who spend time together doing challenging things associate those feelings with their relationship
• you can argue in a way that brings you together or pushes you apart
• emotions are never right or wrong, they're always the truth from the perspective of the person feeling the emotion
  
• sometimes you can't change the other person, so you can only focus on changing yourself
  

relationships are tough. but it's so true how there's just a natural, instinctual longing to be in one. i hope i get another chance at one and do better at making it work.

digging deeper

this year, at least three of my longtime friends in los angeles will move to new cities, new lives and new experiences. i'm also nearing the end of my studies at usc (hopefully), so i can't help but wonder where i eventually will find myself. maybe it's having to say goodbye to friends. maybe it's the expectations of academia. but i find it difficult to envision staying in los angeles for the long haul. who knows, i might be completely wrong. but i get the sense that my time in los angeles is coming to a close. but rather than beginning the process of disentangling myself, i've found myself wanting to dig in deeper here--to appreciate more dearly the friendships developed, to celebrate more joyfully the wonder of the city itself, to commit more strongly to the communities i belong to even if it may only be for another year or two.

hopefully this will be a space to do just that.

fighting the long defeat

on encouragement from mousybabe, let's see if we can resurrect this space as a catalog of life and learning.

"I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I'm not going to stop because we keep losing ... you know, people from our background ... we're used to being on a victory team, and actually what we're really trying to do in [Partners in Health] is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it's not worth it. So you fight the long defeat"

-- Paul Farmer

i just finished reading tracy kidder's mountains beyond mountains, which left me alternately inspired and uncomfortable, in admiration and in trepidation. the book in effect serves as a manifesto of the philosophy, life and work of physician, anthropologist, epidemiologist and Partners in Health (PIH) founder paul farmer, who has devoted his life--i mean, really devoted his life--to global health issues and their connection to poverty. in january, the devastating 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti compelled people globally to contribute to relief efforts, and i kept hearing about PIH's history of amazing work in the country. so i picked up mountains beyond mountains ... and feel richer for the experience.

shaped by liberation theology's preferential option for the poor--the belief that followers of Christ should immerse themselves among and serve in solidarity with the poor and marginalized--farmer has fought for resources to treat global epidemics from tuberculosis to HIV/AIDs in the poorest parts of the world. what struck me most was farmer's dogged pursuit of justice whether that meant donning a suit to persuade world health leaders of the morality and logic of dedicating resources to medical treatment for the poor rather than merely prevention (something that wealthy countries take for granted) or walking seven hours along dusty roads in one day to pay medical house calls to just two families living in rural Haiti.

farmer turns standard perspectives of health approaches for the poor on their head by continually reminding us of the humanity of every person, who unquestionably deserves access to high quality health care, food and shelter. he reminds us that we are so used to notions of scarcity that we forget that scarcity is an assumption and not a given that can be replaced with an ethic of abundance. for example, kidder struggles with farmer's decision to spend $20,000 on a medivac unit to fly a young boy stricken with cancer from Haiti to Boston for treatment. arguably, the money could be used "more effectively" to treat dozens of people. farmer responds that while many would criticize the decision as wasteful, few would pause to consider that the yearly salaries of many young U.S. doctors are quintuple the cost of saving the boy's life. coming from a policy analytic background, notions of cost-effectiveness, efficiencies and equity trade offs are familiar terrain for me. so farmer's work was a welcome reminder that those kinds of constructs have the potential to do violence, and to diminish the humanness and value of every person.

reading kidder's book makes me think again of how my life and work could or should join in the "long defeat" of advocating for the poor and marginalized. the near saintliness of farmer's work and love for the poor easily leads me to discouragement or disengagement because farmer just appears as someone with extraordinary gifts--gifts that most of the rest of us lack. but kidder does an amazing job of basically telling us to get over ourselves because that misplaces the focus. it's not about personal efficacy or personal improvement. farmer's colleague, jim, puts it best when he says in the book:

"Paul is a model of what should be done. He's not a model for how it has to be done. Let's celebrate him. Let's make sure people are inspired by him. But we can't say anybody should or could be just like him ... because if the poor have to wait for a lot of people like Paul to come along before they get good health care, they are totally fucked."

let's hope not. i'm grateful for people like farmer who help call and point us toward the path of long defeat.