Gabriel Byrne’s smoldering Oirish eyes

A couple of years ago, I saw Gabriel Byrne in Ozzie’s coffee shop in Park Slope. It was pretty incongruous to see him there, among all the would-be writers and carefully dressed lassies angling to inspire “Missed Connections” on Craigslist.  He was probably the most unassuming dude in the place.  Come to think of it, that’s a quality I’ve always appreciated in his acting as well, the reserve that masks the intensity.  Even when he played Shelley Long’s doctor in that movie where she fatally choked on a bone and her kooky sister brought her back from the dead–even in that ridiculous (but endearing) film, he was able to create the impression of someone who thinks thoughts all the time, and conceals most of them.

Gabe is one of the reasons I gave “In Treatment” a shot–along with Dianne Wiest– despite having serious reservations about watching a show on therapy. For one thing, I expected it would just make me nostalgic for the crackle/drama/intelligence of the Melfi-Tony sessions.  Also, the subject of therapy lends itself pretty easily to sentimentality and unrealistic excesses, and I can’t deal with that.

 So, imagine my pleasant surprise at the show’s restraint.  Byrne’s reticence works really well here–it’s what he doesn’t do and say in the sessions that makes him convincing as a therapist. His facial expressions are muted and he’s mostly silent, except for the occasional incisive question. (In my experience, the patient-to-therapist talk ratio is 90-10.)  The writers also deserve credit for holding information about the patients’ characters back.  Patients don’t spill their guts to their therapists, they fool themselves and conceal things until careful questioning and continuous conversations chip away at their delusions.

I had a major problem watching Laura, one of Byrne’s patients, who’s maddeningly self-absorbed and provocative and poorly related.  I didn’t like how her sexual attraction to Byrne–which she announces to him mid-session–is treated with an air of legitimacy.  This character has an obvious personality disorder. Why, when Byrne’s taking to his own therapist (Wiest) about Laura, doesn’t he call a spade a spade and diagnose her, classify her, put her in her place, in some way? 

Final thought: the segment with the (possibly suicidal) teenaged girl is the best. It’s the most arresting and worrisome, in a way. That kid can act. 

Gherkins

I rashly and somewhat violently deleted all of my earlier posts except for the original one.  I’ve been scolded, and I apologize. I did not mean to jerk anybody’s gherkin.  I just thought my posts were self-revealing and cheesy.  Maybe that’s cowardly.  And I suppose it raises the question, what’s the point of personal expression in a public forum if you’re uncomfortable with disclosure?

Speaking of personal expression in a public forum, that reminds me of a story I heard several years ago about someone I went to high school with, who was arrested for doing a “genital dance” in the parking lot of a pizza place in our town. The phrase “genital dance” appeared in our local paper’s account of the incident.  I didn’t read the article myself, but I’m willing to bet that ”genital dance” appeared without quotation marks, like it was an established phenomenon.  I believe the guy’s defense was that he was changing out of his work uniform in his car, without any intention of exposing himself.  Hey, I’ve been there. 

My point is, while I’m wholly on the side of genital dances (see, no quotes), I’m ambivalent about self-exposure.

This dirty minute

No, I’m not into guns (not even pee-filled Super Soakers). I just like the word materiel, and other words I like–brackish, implacable, bananas–didn’t sound all that felicitous as blog titles.   I almost went with the name “Brackish Girl,” because it’s resonant of “Moorish Girl,” but then I had to stop and think–where do I know the phrase “Moorish Girl” from, anyway? Is that from Ulysses? I have this problem of thinking that every little verbal snippet I can’t place is from Ulysses.  That reminds me of this dumb dialogue I wrote in my mind once while under the influence:

 Person 1: “I think I might have a learning disability.”

 Person 2: “Oh no, why?”

 Person 1: “I didn’t really get Ulysses.”

So shlocky.

So what am I doing with this blog?  Well, I have some tedious applications to fill out and feel like my eyeballs will resume their twitch (they really twitch, for weeks at a time) if I write another personal statement. No statement that’s written without any contractions sounds remotely personal.  And yet, use too many contractions and you’re a goofball. Mix it up and your tone is uneven.

Last thing: maybe you’re like me, and you were troubled by the assassination in Pakistan but even more disturbed by how dumb, ahistorical, and uncritical the mainstream coverage was.  I find it damn near impossible to read the news reports from NYT or CNN and have any sense of what’s going on.  Anyway, I want to make this a fun blog (penispenispenis), but this is important, so here’s a link to Democracy Now’s interview with Tariq Ali, which at least begins to provide some context for the political developments in Pakistan and what the US’s role has been.  

No really, lastly, I watched the Karate Kid (Part I) tonight and realized for the first time  that Sensei John Kreese is supposed to be a deranged veteran.  Fighting the Vietnamese, you could assume. Miyagi’s a veteran, too, but he was fighting Germans, while his wife and newborn son died in an internment camp.  That is so f*cked-up.  The Cobra Kai dojo kids who terrorize Daniel all have sort of a Hitler Youth look to them, but I guess it could also just be “Californian.”

Good night!