movies, books, and Cleaning

saw 51 Birch Street last week. A good documentary and I recommend it. a family story, but more the story of a marriage. actually, more the idea that nothing is as it seems and that you cannot know the relationship between two people unless you are one of those two people. and maybe even then, you don't understand it. i came away from the film with alot of emotions, but also some practical ideas. in the movie, the husband has to sort through their house that they shared for over 50 years. they have ALOT of stuff. mostly, that i wanted to really clean the house out after watching it. we tend to carry around alot of stuff. well, maybe just me, but i have alot of stuff. i started to go through photographs and old papers and realized, there is so much stuff i have, i don't need and don't remember why i kept and who is this person in this picture? so i've been purging. and selling books and cds on Amazon and i'm going to have an online ellen cherry Garage Sale/Give Away so that my stuff can become your stuff. i just want to feel a bit lighter. the attic is weighing this house down (but maybe that's a good thing? it was quite windy in B'more last night.)

Last night, i watched most of Gunner Palace. I won't finish and will mail it back to Netflix today. it had been on my list for awhile, and i should have watched it online one day during lunch. it's distracting, confusing and sad. we have sent children over to another country, directed by people who are suffering from bad Intelligence. More footage of how confused everyone is, including the Iraqi people--a bewildering situation. i suppose the thing that bothers me the most and what i gleaned from the film is this: in trying to seek out and squelch terrorism, we are terrorizing people and creating a feeling of terror elsewhere. isn't that called revenge? i know there are people there trying to create good things.....but they must feel completely overwhelmed by the incompetence and short sighted-ness of the top brass (as is evident in No End In Sight.)

Which brings me to Sergio Viera de Mello. I started Samantha Power's book Chasing the Flame yesterday. She's too smart for me, but i'm trying to keep up. A bio of de Mello who seems like he could have charmed the entire world into voting him Supreme Leader of Humans (and done a kick ass job at the post) if only some misguided idiot hadn't removed him too early from this earthly plane.