Weblog 75

July 15, 2007~ 2:30am
I watched the movie "Breach" tonight. Excellent character study of a strange and altogether mystifying man, who was full of contradictory behaviors, and fascinating to follow on screen. In a role played impeccably by Chris Cooper, we're able to feel drawn toward the likable, 'lost side' of the notorious FBI turncoat, yet equally repelled by the duplicities in which he was embroiled. The movie made me start to think about the idea of being alone in a crowd because if ever a person was, that man had to have been-- and not only as a result of his nearly 20 years of espionage activity while also working for the Bureau, but by the polarizing dichotomy within his own character. He had to have felt estranged even from himself, and Cooper was able to show this brilliantly in his performance. There is a profound loneliness about the man.

In the person of Robert Hanssen, we see someone pathologically fanatically 'Catholic' who is at the same time compulsively drawn to pornography, even to secretly filming he and his wife in the bedroom and then mailing those tapes with 'a friend'. Would such a man pray a daily rosary and attend daily Mass? You wouldn't think so, but he did.

How did he pull it off? Do an internet search on 'Robert Hanssen' and you will find an ordinary-looking guy with a toothy grin; not the sort of face you'd associate with either perversion or treason. He had to have had such perfectly sealed compartments within himself- and that was the thing that was unbreachable, not government secrets. The young FBI plant, working to get evidence to indict him by allowing Hanssen begin to get close enough, that was the real 'breach'.

So back to this idea of being alone....in a crowd....




he must have felt as spooked as the startled girl in the center of this old photo. It's disturbing to look at her.

And what about 'aloneness'? When is it scary? Well, aloneness that feels threatening is frightening to me. Those long hallways in 'The Shining'....that sort of 'alone' is terrifying to me. The isolation and vague threat of empty corridors-





Oooooo.....gives me shivers just looking at it. I think Hanssen felt both these types of estrangement- in a crowd- by his very variance from others- and certainly in the threat of discovery due to his ongoing treasonous activities, but I think he felt a third type too- he must have: he must have felt the 'aloneness' within between his selves.

There was a time in my own life- back when I was an adolescent, when I felt tremendous anxiety being seen by groups of strangers. I hated being 'looked at', and felt as though all I wanted to do was disappear into the wallpaper because I just knew that who they were seeing was so very different from how I saw myself in the comfort of- say- my own room. For that period of time, a scene like this-




would produce sweaty palms and a rapid heartbeat. Just the thought of walking down an empty aisle where others might be looking at or appraising me felt so very threatening, but it passed in time. And although I am still somewhat uncomfortable in groups, it's not so you'd notice, nor does it still produce that fear reaction. Chris Cooper says at one point in the film, "I don't like to be scrutinized."

That's the truest statement his character makes, and I believe it holds for all parts of his life: his career, his marriage- probably even in his church, and most certainly every time that strange man looked into a mirror. Who did he see?

My favorite quote from the film: "A man does what he does. The 'whys' don't matter." When I heard that, it was like a bell rung, one I've been hearing all my life. I believe in the truth of that statement right down to the ground. I would not make a good defense attorney...

If you haven't watched this one- rent it. It's not a spy movie, it's not a thriller. What it is, is a journey inside of someone whose interior is one of the most strangely compartmentalized possible-- and Cooper is captivating.




July 17, 2007~ 9:00pm
I've been thinking about the following incident for 2 days now- truly. And it's just so bizarre that rather than explain it, I thought I'd post the poem I'd written about it instead. Poetry is like a set of locks on a river- my boat drifts down, sometimes loaded with unmanagable cargo, and it won't move on to the next level- I can't get where I want to go because I'm stranded in a place that doesn't fit, that has no egress....

and so I write it out. Here's the one of the craziest things I've ever watched.




Screamer OUT!

Didja ever hear the sound
of one of your own
Screamers escaped
to the outside? It will
give
the shivers,
let me tell you
and I heard one yesterday. It was in
the supermarket; I'd just walked
into the outer lobby
and was looking for a cart, and up it started. Some really
CRAZ-EEEE
person at a fever
pitch, with a sound like cats were going at it
with a voice I can only describe as engine crank, but really
desperate,
over
and over
the very same words that were
so infantile, so absurd, and she was middle-aged
at least, but what she
was saying
could have come from the mouth
of a four
year old.
Her wavy, long hair unkempt,
and salt and pepper, with an eyebrow that connected
in the center,
her howling mouth
showed every other tooth
was gone. She was

wearing

short
shorts

and she was
screaming
at a
little
old man who looked like he wanted
to disappear: "YOU POOPIE! YOU
WOOPIE! you SHIT! you SHIT SHIT SHIT!"
and all the while she
harangued him,
she was hunched
and walking like a
stick girl, one arm
flaying
about,
and the other
quite disturbingly, was slapping
her own
pudenda like she wanted to put out a fire- "YOU POOPIE
WOOPIE
SHIT
SHIT SHIT!!!"
at the TOP OF HER LUNGS, till she sounded hoarse
and really stricken by God knows what
she saw
as she looked at him. She followed
some steps
behind,
but when
he, red-faced,
said,
"Now that's
enough
now, that's enough-"

she began to hit him-

arms going pinwheels
at his head
and flapping at this chest.

I'd never seen
such a thing
right out in public,
and then it stopped.
I thought
I'd imagined it, that's how complete the silence

was at once.

I think the both of them
were whisked to another side
where they'd fallen out
just about
the same time I came in-

or maybe it was
one of
my own
tamped
down, RED-MAD
SCREAMERS who'd ducked out
just when I thought I'd locked
them in- you never
can tell.





July 18, 2007~ 9:15pm

Bug Burg...

What the heck is going on around here? Stories appearing in 'news of the weird' are being harvested from right here in Pittsburgh--- mostly about bugs. Apparently a HUGE cache of bees- roughly 30,000 and most of them dead, were found in the ceiling of a house in Forest Hills after honey began seeping through the ceiling. A bee expert was called in to dig out honey and aged honeycombs from a three-foot space.





More than 100 pounds of honeycomb had to be extracted.





Then on July 16th, Kittanning was host to thousands and thousands of hatching mayflies. The buggers actually made it necessary to close down a bridge, because the slicked-up bug surface made for some slippery driving; they laid down lots of sand in order to curtail the potential for fish-tailing cars. Here's a close up of some of these winged squatters lining a girder....





Last, but much sadder, GO TELL AUNT RHODY... approximately 300 Canadian geese were taken from North Park this past weekend and 'euthanized'. No one can say 'how'. (Wringing necks is the usual way, isn't it?) Apparently the park has had an ongoing problem with goose dung-- over 400 lbs of it per day has to be cleaned away (and the yuppies were getting their tennis whites all befouled....poor complaining silver spooners.) I say this with absolutely no idea who did all the complaining, but it seems to me the poorer folk would have simply enjoyed the quackers, and would probably have packed some stale bread to let their kiddies feed 'em, too-- that's my guess anyway.

I guess too many Porsches were being shat upon, and tennis court lines getting hard to see. Or (horrors!) maybe some of the geese flew over one too many of those 'golf course quality lawns' being tended, no doubt, by illegal immigrants-- or it maught be a few expensively-coiffed heads received a 'present' recently-- who knows?

They're supposedly donating the 'healthy dead geese' to a local food bank...'healthy dead'... that's an oxymoron, isn't it? But isn't it nice that it's all going for a 'good cause'?

Yah, right. Yep, we got it, and we know how to get RID OF IT too!





***
(Return To Weekly Archives)