CALL ME SNAKE

I don't normally rent a movie from the video store that I haven't heard anything about. And I didn't do that tonight, although I came close. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled "Big Bad Swim" off the shelves and got curious about it. I found some reviews (favorable) online and kept it in mind. One of the reviews said something to the effect that no one would see this movie--as it lacks any big-name stars or even little-name stars--which was a shame. And it is a shame as it is nicely written and quite enjoyable. Who would have figured a movie about an adult swim class could be so much fun? A movie about handball or volleyball maybe, but adult swimming? Yet it really works.

I suppose that most people will never hear of this movie and fewer still will see it but if one person does as a result of this post I will consider writing it five minutes well spent.

Why do all the newspapers and NPR radio shows buy into the idea that in the summer we should be reading different kinds of books than we read the rest of the year? I personally don't buy it which is why I call this trend (admittedly an entrenched one by now) the Great Summer Reading Scam.

I went to the Y to swim yesterday, arriving there at the same time as someone else I recognized from the pool. Upon checking in, he requested three towels. I believe he picked three because that's the maximum allowed under his membership plan. (The maxmum allowed under my membership plan is zero.) Maybe I'm making too much of it, but I don't know why a guy needs three large towels just to go in the swimming pool. I only need one, and it's a pretty skimpy one at that. But this guy somehow feels he needs three, as do many other members, I'm sure, under the same membership plan. On the one hand, they're not doing anything wrong: they're just taking what comes to them with their membership. But three towels per person per visit means a lot of hot water is going down the drain to clean them, which means a lot of energy is consumed as well. Americans use more energy per capita than any other nation on Earth and this is one of the reasons why.

Has there ever been a player like Manny Ramirez? In yesterday's game in Baltimore, he caught a ball at the left field fence, gave a high five to a fan wearing Red Sox regalia (IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PLAY!), and then hurled the ball to first where he doubled up a runner. That shows, as much as anything else, that this extraordinarily talented player, who makes a ton of money, is in it for more than just money. He plays for fun, and, if you ask me, that's what we need more of in professional sports.

Ah, the hypocrisy of it all. Hillary Clinton has chastised Obama for the words of Jeremiah Wright, saying "he would not have been my pastor." But what happened when Bill Clinton got caught in a sex scandal some years ago, sending the family into crisis mode? According to this week's NEW YORKER, "the Clintons summomed the clergy (including, by the way, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright)."

So why was that bombshell buried within a parenthetical, when it is big news in my book? I have no idea. Personally I think it's enough to bring Hillary Clinton down because of the sheer hypocrisy--because she has been beating Obama so hard over the Wright business--while he was someone her family personally turned to in a time of P.R. need. So what's the explanation: "You can pick your pastor but not during a highly-publicized family crisis"? I'd like to see this story become front-page news, which it ought to be, given the currently ridiculous tenor of the presidential campaign.

We've been hearing a lot lately about how much the middle class is hurtin', and I know--from personal experience--how hard it is to make ends meet these days. I happened to choose a profession where financial renumeration has barely gone up in 20 years. The thing is, after tonight's (last night's, for the sticklers) debate between Barack and Hillary, I'm not sure I'm even close to the middle class. Clinton promised not to raise taxes for middle-class families earning LESS THAN $250,000. And she wasn't talking about how much they earned in a decade. That was for a single year. I don't know how you define middle class, and I have even discussed that very topic in these pages, but I never figured it extended up to that lofty register. By my standards, folks earning that kind of bread are way beyond middle class. Them are rich.

How many times in a movie have you seen two characters disrobing near the doorway and making their way into the bedroom? Too many to count, I'm sure. But how many times have you seen one of those characters taking off a bicycle leg protector? I've only seen it once, in "The Jane Austen Book Club," which is enough to qualify the movie as an original in my book, even if it did seem contrived in parts. The guy wearing the leg protector was played by Hugh Dancy, whose performance alone made the movie worth watching. How can those Brits do such a good job of playing Americans when I've yet to see the American actor (male or female) who can convincingly play a Brit?

Yesterday I heard an interesting interview of the authors (David Brock and Paul Waldman) of a book critical of John McCain. The media, they claim, has given McCain a free pass. In one month, they found that he was referred to as a "maverick" 1200 times--not by his staff but by so-called journalists who are not paid to do PR for the candidate. Has McCain earned that moniker? Not according to the authors who say that McCain has voted with his party 85% of the time, which puts him squarely in the middle of the pack. By that standard if he’s a maverick so are most of the people in Congress, and we know that’s not true.

Movies about dysfunctional families have long since become a cliche. But every now and then one comes along that truly breaks the mold. The latest to do that is "Margot at the Wedding," a literary tour-de-force set on film. The writing in this movie crackles like that of a good novel. The scenes in the film ring true and real, though despite the humor ("laughs that draw blood") it depicts a reality of the grimmest sort.

Now there's a new book coming out by former Cheney henchman, Douglas Feith, an architect of the Iraq War, who blames everyone else for the problems in Iraq. From what I gather about the book, Feith suggests the plan was perfect but that everybody other than the Pentagon--the Army, Department, intelligence community--just couldn't implement his brilliant scheme. Who on earth would want to publish such garbage? And, more importantly, who on earth would want to read it?