I apologize for yet another jumbled update. But with so much changing, so many new things, sound bytes will have to do for now. “Bits” is a particularly useful word in our small family (originating with the “bits box” on road trips that holds things like extra batteries, various cords, Orbit gum, and the like), and while generally used for things, bits can apply handily to situations, emotions and such.

So, the following bits, in no particular order:

1. We love our cozy new home in the woods…but not so much the encroaching roaches, spider webs, and poke weed. David has unleashed effective campaigns against all three.

2. Though we’re in a fairly heavily populated area just north of Atlanta, there’s plenty of green (a lot of it rampant kudzu!) and a national park just 20 minutes away with a nice-sized mountain for climbing and plenty of trails. We’re in the thick of Civil War history ranging across the flanks of the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield.

3. I like churches. I mean, of course, the people rather than the building…as it seems half of churches these days meet in schools and movie theatres, anyway. I’ve attended a variety of churches in my moves, and for the past few years, it’s been large churches — mostly 3,000 and up. Now, we’re visiting smaller churches, looking for a place where it’s easy to connect in and put down some roots. And since moving, we’re two for two on small, welcoming bits of the Body of Christ where we could happily fit in.

4. Catastrophe struck last week when David’s computer (with five years of business and personal work and software) fried. Thankfully, we’d been planning on a new computer, but though much of the material was backed up, some vital things may be beyond recovery. It’s a glorious day, though, since the official Apple box with the new machine arrived this afternoon and is sitting in the office, awaiting David’s return from the film set he’s been on all day.

5. There is a Trader Joe’s within blocks of the Art Within office. Also, a Caribou Coffee and a Starbucks. This is a very good thing.

6. Advanced Cutter is not effective against Georgia mosquitoes.

7. If I may take a moment and brag on my husband, check out his very cool portfolio here.

More bits to come…

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If you haven’t heard the news, we are under-cloud of a cinematic masterpiece. The Dark Knight is now the new standard of cinema classic - the greatest film ever made, by some accounts. Indeed, it appears we must rework the grading curve to assess the pantheon of film history. Consider, if you will, that Citizen Kane, Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Godfather, Schindler’s List (and a hundred other important movies) all rank noticeably lower than The Dark Knight on the Internet Movie Database. At least Rotten Tomatoes—the alleged bastion of professional film critique—still has a modicum of perspective on some of these other films, but The Dark Knight remains high atop the heap there as well. Okay, maybe internet sites aren’t exactly cinematic imperiums, but one can’t help but ponder the audacity.

So while the critical world unilaterally spits up on itself, and fan-boys across the world stampede each other with orgiastic glee to see who can proclaim the “awesomeness” the loudest, could the rest of us quietly, and thoughtfully, consider for a moment just what this film is… and isn’t?

What it is: Entertaining. Exhilarating. Dark. Well-acted. Complex. Impressive. Tedious. Overly long. Full of holes. Full of itself. Overwrought. Silly. (more or less in chronological order).

What it is not: For the timid. Easy to follow. Uplifting. For the kids. A masterpiece. Subtle. Well-written.

Maybe those are too easy: swipes which work better as buzzy sound-bites than clear and balanced critique. But is the film good? Well, it’s not bad. I mostly had fun watching it. Does it belong in the top 10 films of all time? Definitely not. Not even in the top one hundred, I dare say. And why not? Because the standards by which the greatest films of all time are measured have nothing to do with the elements by which The Dark Knight is esteemed: showy special effects, mood, and acting. Great films do share one thing in common however, regardless of genre, subject or year of release - they’re well-written opuses that reflect the universal character of humanity, however great, however flawed. And while The Dark Knight does dress itself like a film concerned with these matters, ultimately it would rather be a wham-bang amusement park sensation that enjoys chewing up the audience and crapping them onto the parking lot, thanks for the $10.50, next in line please.

Many are eager to proclaim the dark complexities, and complicities, of the film, as if to suggest we’ve never encountered the profound struggle of a superhero coming to terms with his crime-fighting persona, private and public. Superman? Spiderman? X-Men? Iron Man? Mr. Incredible? Bruce Willis?… any of these characters ring a bell? We’ve been there, and we’ve done that… repeatedly. Whatever hard themes The Dark Knight wants to challenge itself with are nothing new, and don’t really matter in the end anyway. It’s not as profound as it thinks it is. It doesn’t really “say” anything other than: “Evil is bad. Batman is good. Sometimes it’s confusing which is which, but that’s okay, ’cause Batman can still kick ass.”

I guess, for whatever it’s worth, that’s the sort of mantra that just feels sooo good to the modern moviegoer, awash in a miasma of crass, whiny, quirky and pointless post-modern movies. In the face of all that rot, the film does sweep onto the screen with an admirable confidence few films wear these days. I can appreciate that kind of cinematic punch to the face, but you’ve got to let the audience up once in a while. The non-stop intensity of The Dark Knight churns on relentlessly for so long that you simply wish the thing would end. Somewhere in the third hour I found myself studying the track lighting in the floor, sighing deeply, wanting to scream out “somebody please win and get this over with!”

And that’s really the most disheartening piece to this puzzle. Less really could have been more. And by that I mean intensity for substance. A simpler through-line with one villain (did we learn nothing from Spiderman 3?) a three-act structure and savvier instincts would have made for a smarter and better movie that might have cracked the top 100 in my humble opinion—maybe even the top 25. Instead we get “more is more”, as in intensity and mayhem for intensity and mayhem. You almost felt the director/studio croaking incessantly at the climax of every scene: “But wait! We’ve got something even cooler in the next scene!”, to which the film-going audience happily obliges with bug-eyed enthusiasm.

Sadly, this is the new populist art. No longer motivated by accessible and simple acts of humanity, we thirst for a salvo of pyrotechnic and FX-trumped madness—a thickly layered billion-dollar simulacra that points to nothing but itself.

Thanks, but I’ll save the hyperbole for the next truly great masterpiece, if one ever arrives.

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As I pack up the remaining bits of my office, and life, and house, I want to pause for some reflections that have been working themselves out in my head these past many weeks and months. I don’t commit to putting these kinds of thoughts down like I used to, and blogging is a pitiable excuse for journaling (another entry), but it’s still a document. In the minimum, I at least want to say “here… this… now.”

About two autumns ago, while feeling a bit nostalgic, I took a short trip through an old neighborhood, running back over memories of school and friends. I wasn’t surprised by the cascade of thoughts that followed (how I had arrived at my current stage and its companion: “did I get here the right way?”) but I did realize, rather startlingly, that I’d now lived in Dayton, OH longer than I had lived anywhere else my whole life (at the time, 18 years). No glance in the mirror or ginger body ache made me feel quite as aged as that tiny, wincing moment… because I swear I just moved here.

The eventful parade of joy and tears, learning, love, hopes, dreams and visions crystalized in a second and I became the strange figure of a man I wondered about at 16 while slouched in the back seat of my parent’s car: “who will I be in 20 years?” Whoever coined the term ‘bittersweet’ must have been living through a similar moment.

And here I am again, making a mental inventory of the whole mad affair as I get ready to leave it behind for another chapter in a new city. One score of a man’s life, checked, catalogued and filed away—just dramatic and exciting enough to be interesting, just blessed enough by the hand of God to be a witness to His providence.

I look forward to what awaits—new dreams, new hopes—but for now I drift back, considering with amazement what has been this speeding rush of two decades…

Here is a man as a kid, a new student, foolish and proud, ignorant and wise, a ghost of Holden Caulfield in his shadow.

Here he is as an artist—desperate and hopeful, hungry for knowledge, a stumbling tower of ego.

Here he is as a young man, his first true job spinning webs of promise and stagnancy, his first true friends planting stone and steel… his best friend all fur and obstinance.

Here he is at 30, meeting with God, grabbing hold of slippery and unrealistic dreams, still knowing, still believing.

Here he is as a husband, awkward and selfish, the stumbling tower of ego, torn down and rebuilt with new hands.

And all of it within this city, in just about every corner.

We look to another horizon, that will someday arrive with as much quiet surprise as this one has.

But for now, Farewell to you, good friend.

Don’t swallow up our empty space too quickly.

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…our house is a shambles, mostly in boxes. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of boxes, but are hoping to remedy that this afternoon through a handy craigslist posting. (What’s not to love about craigslist?)

We have until Wednesday to corral the chaos, at which point we stuff it all into a 17′ UHaul. Assuming it all fits. Which is not guaranteed.

Thanks to all of you who called, texted, and emailed birthday greetings. I’m terribly sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you yet, but I will sometime soon! Though possibly not until Georgia.

More blogging to come. From the South…

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From Claudia Roden’s “Coffee: A Connoisseur’s Companion” by way of several other blogs…

In Italy it was the priests who appealed to Pope Clement VIII to have the use of coffee forbidden among Christians.  Satan, they said, had forbidden his followers, the infidel Moslems, the use of wine because it was used in the Holy Communion, and given them instead his “hellish black brew.”  It seems the Pope liked the drink, for his reply was: “Why, this Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it.  We shall cheat Satan by baptizing it.”  Thus coffee was declared a truly Christian beverage by a farsighted Pope.

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I like structure. Form. A framework. Let me craft the full skeleton before ever touching muscle or flesh to bone.

When I was a senior in high school, Mrs. U taught me how to write an essay. Her real name was Ruth Uyesugi, but decades of high school students shortened it to the affectionate vowel. She stood in front of the class with the Oriental carved ivory pendant hanging at her chest (she had married a Japanese man during World War II and internment camps, the blond Quaker and the dark-haired opthamologist; she knew how to play outside the lines) and she preached the three-point topical paper. Start with a creative, engaging introduction. Then a brief organizational paragraph listing the three points to be addressed. Following: the three points themselves. And finally, a succinct conclusion.

I wrote every paper through college and on into grad school by this dictum, and it worked for two-page book reviews and twenty-page finals.

When I stumbled into the mysteries of screenwriting, the month-long Act One program (and Robert McKee, author of the screenwriting bible Story) gave me a new tool to rein in the vast unknown expanse: the three-act structure. I clung to this life raft that read, at most basic, beginning, middle, end. Ten weeks with Janet and Lee Batchler hammered in a new set of skeletal bones: sequences to build the acts (three to beginning and end, six to the middle)–and three beats to a sequence. Thirty six movements, actions, to tell a complete story.

Now every screenplay I begin starts with those 36 points, fitting them into place, edging them around, pulling the shaky pieces, shoring up weak joints. And when the skeleton is complete, I am free to be creative, to juggle words and ideas, secure in the ending already written. True: the bones of a finished screenplay must often be broken and reset time and time again; even limb amputations and new growth. But even then–I reform the structure before I write.

Some would say that I am no artist. That I cling too tightly to the form of things, the established ways. I say…let them have their say.

Scripture says that God knows the plans he has for me. Over and over, I’m told He has predestined me for Himself, formed the bones of my life, the bridge that leads me from here to there. My free will, it seems, is the muscle and bone, the fleshing it out–but I build on this framework with such anxiety, such care–because I can’t see the framework. I didn’t craft it and I don’t know where this next bit of creating will take me, I didn’t write this ending, so how do I find it?

I know. I do know. The ending has been written.

I’ve read it. I’ve heard it.

So I know.

I do.

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But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  ~I Timothy 6:6-7

The script I’m currently rewriting grapples with the idea of contentment. What does it look like? Where does it come from? Is there such a thing as false contentment? And how do I answer these questions — all of which Scripture addresses directly — in a manner that doesn’t reek of “Christianese” to someone who wouldn’t touch a Bible if you handed it to them?

Immersing myself in this morass, I shouldn’t be surprised to find my own contentment under attack.

At the moment, I’m starting my dream work — being able to write full-time as my day job. I am married to a wonderful, creative man who gets as excited as I do by the dictionary.com word of the day. We’ve been practically given a beautiful house to live in for the next year.

–And yet, I find myself shot through multiple times a day with tiny, hot needles of irritation and envy for what I don’t have, for the things that don’t satisfy. It’s often the most inane, ridiculous situations: the friend who has her guest bathroom decorated perfectly, the woman at the grocery store who manages to get her hair to frame her face just right, the article by a writer who expresses a thought in clever, insightful way I wouldn’t have thought of.

All of which tells me: if I can’t embrace who God has made me to be and what He has given me in this moment, I will never be content. It won’t matter how many screenplays I sell, how brilliant my marriage is, or if we end up with a lovely little mountain cabin in the wilds of the Blue Ridge — I will find ways to take issue with it, to handcraft my own discontent.

So here’s to embracing the gift — the gifts — of the moment. To weaving a fabric of contentment, thread by thread, thought by thought. And to telling a story that just might encourage someone else to do the same.

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1. Incredibly thankful for a beautiful home in Marietta, Georgia that landed in our laps through a series of “random” connections only God could have orchestrated. We drive down July 4 to see the house in person and sign the lease. We’ll have plenty of room, so come down and visit, ya’ll hear?

2. Packing madly and praying that everything fits in the 17′ moving van, because who wants to drive a 24′ van 500 miles if it can be avoided?

3. Pleased, as lovers of detail, to discover that it is 500 miles (to the tenth of a mile) door to door from out current home to our new home. (And both mere miles off Interstate 75, too!)

4. Biking every known trail in Montgomery County, Ohio. Helmets, yes. Spandex, no way.

5. Creating and rewriting far too many projects to keep track of. (Liz is currently working on five feature film rewrites at varying levels. This requires interesting mental gymnastics.)

6. Learning to make a mean mango smoothie.

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So we’re both upstairs on a rainy Saturday morning, David animating a super-cute, hand-drawn hound dog and me answering emails.

The doorbell rings.

I trot downstairs and tug the door open to discover:

An entire SWAT team crowded onto our porch and fanned out across the lawn.

Seriously.

My first thought was that they were fundraising. My second was that is had something to do with a traffic incident on our one-way street where everyone flies through at top speed.

But the head honcho looked pretty grim. Definitely not selling candy bars. He asked if I was Sherry?

I was happy to deny that identity, but they wanted my ID. A female officer followed me right into the house and up the stairs uninvited as I went to find it.

Once they had both our IDs in hand, one fellow phoned in our info, while a couple other officers kept a careful eye on us in the living room and shot the breeze about my marimba.

After they verified that neither of us was Sherry, they departed, leaving nothing but muddy footprints on the carpet and a burning question:

Who is Sherry, and WHAT did she do?

(editor’s note: It should be clarified that I was not wearing pants when the SWAT agent came up the stairs. In fact this is why I made Liz answer the door. Understandably, I was perturbed that my wife was showing a “guest” the upstairs with me sans pants, but I did manage to don appropriate attire once I figured out what was going on. You don’t mess around with the Law, unless of course this was an episode of “Cops”. In that case, the boxers would have indeed been the right outfit for a chase through the alleys of our neighborhood. - Dave)

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…is a go!

The short version: I’m starting work for Art Within immediately. We’ll drive down together in early July to get a feel for the area and look at places to live — and while David drives back to continue work on his projects, I’ll stay to work with the AW staff for several weeks. Then I’ll head back to Ohio to help wrap up and we’ll make the official move at the end of July.

Hello Atlanta in August…

Needless to say, central A/C is a rather vital priority for us in housing options. And a rocking chair front porch would be handy.

Mint julep, anyone?

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