Could U 2 Be Psychic?

I often have those odd moments where something I'd thought about in passing does come to pass, such as thinking about finding a four-leaf clover, then the next day looking down while walking the dog and viola, a four-leaf clover.

Or more horrifyingly serious, having a strange, ill feeling come over me about a hospital as I passed by one overlooking GA-400, then a couple of hours later rushing my child into that same emergency room. A few days before 9-11, I dreamt of planes swooping into NYC using the bridges into Manhattan as their pathways. I thought not a thing of it until... well, you know when.

Then there's that old devil boy-man, Eason Jordan. Now I admit to a slight obsession with Eason since he was such an Atlanta fixture, starting CNN with Ted and such, and then being one of the first people to be seriously "outed" in the blogosphere. (Over his remarks about journalists being killed in... wherever, Iraq I assume. While Eason was schmoozing it at Davos one year. No lack of ye olde irony there.) Then he runs off with Mariane Pearl (they were perilously close to the alter I hear before someone came to their senses. What was she thinking? Grief will certainly cloud one's good judgement I suppose) and resigns abruptly from CNN -- not necessarily in that order.

So I fell asleep last night thinking of that doofus Eason while reading an article about the making of the badly-titled, A Mighty Heart, into a movie. (Think A Mighty Wind. I often do.) Which is unfortunate as it is a beautifully written, powerful, all-in-one-sitting book. For me, it really was as close as I'll ever get to an inspirational/self-help title as the true love and the deep bond and the friendship shared by Danny Pearl and Mariane just lit-up the entire book.

What a tragic loss for her, yet an intelligent and deeply believable story for all of us who still believe, go figure, in heterosexual, monogamous, romantic love. Or at least cling to the notion of it being possible. It genuinely was so with those two.

I read the book in a wallow of pure bitterness and cynicism over romantic love never ever being sustainable between men and women. Ye olde post-divorce scenario I suppose. Nothing unusual to be in that classically bitter state of mind, having just been divorced then subjected to two subsequent and deeply disappointing relationships. I was in the "Never Again" mindset fer sure, but that book honestly helped drag me back up to a less hardened stance in the romantic love department. Can't say I've forgiven the Islamacist motherfuckers who beheaded precious Danny Pearl yet, but I've made great strides in keeping faith that men and women can co-habitate in harmony.

But I'm diverging from my intended topic... so I fell asleep wondering WTF was up with Eason, and wondering if the Brangelina flick would have a character playing that pumpkin-head (of course not), and low and behold, I wake to the news that Eason has launched... a blog! My my my... the unconscious workings of the mind never cease to amaze me.

Put A Stake In It, That Southern Culture Is Dead

Faulkner's not dead; he was just passed-out drunk in his coffin all this time. Talk about dredging-up the past and going places maybe we just shouldn't be going... now some wretched Faulkner family member has sold a vampire script Faulkner wrote in his I'm Really Hammered phase, one that went on for over a decade, to a Hollywood producer. The producer seems deeply enamored, bless his heart, with that absurdist stereotype of some moss-ridden, Hazel Motes-y (or is that O'Conner?) "Deep South" naturally enough. From The Guardian:

Faulkner's estate has given the script to Lee Caplin, a producer who says he would like to set it in the Deep South. Little more is known but there is a revival of interest in adapting Faulkner's work to the screen. It is said Oprah Winfrey wants to make Light in August and Caplin is looking for a writer to adapt Faulkner's 1935 story Golden Land (the only tale he actually set in Hollywood) in the twisted style of a David Lynch film.

So Big Oprah and some fucktard producer who thinks that that drooling, fake gothicist David Lynch is no doubt a brilliant filmmaker are waiting in the wings to leech off the rest of the backwater vapors? Deep South is cool, eh? Most real southerners are so Deep South stupid they'd confuse Faulkner with Colonel Sanders, although he looks an awful lot like an aging Billy Bragg in the above snapshot. (He too likes the ladies much I hear.)

How about methed-out rednecks, mega-church mentalities, gated communities, ghetto culture, I Heart Bush stickers plastered on pickup trucks, fat developers in pink shorts on manufactured golf courses, Wal-Marts and NASCAR nowadays, you clueless Hollywood dickheads? Who'd want to film that crap?

Movie Making

A movie set for Motives 2 materialized in the neighborhood tonight, morphing the school bus stop into a staging area. This made for an interesting evening's stroll. Ava posed for a shot by the grip truck. Lots of nice young people milling about. One crew member said Ben Affleck was in the movie, but not in tonight's scenes. Can't say I ever saw Motives 1. A bit of Googling finds that the director, Craig, liked the Boondocks/MLK episode, too.

Still the major feature film-making rages on into the night. Yawn. Time for bed. The lead-dog cinemaphotographer was adorable. Sweet dreams.