Killing Another Mockingbird

My life has never been as unhappy as it was at the end of 2004. Overworked, underappreciated, my social life in shambles, my friendships adrift, I flew past my expiration date left with the question, "now what?"

And although I know there are some people who will disagree, I've never been one who has been reluctant to make a change when I feel stuck- a change in jobs, a change in living situations, a change in a relationship, a change in my approach, I've done it all over and back again.

I found myself spontaneously making two significant changes this spring without giving either one much thought. First I added a third cat into the home front mixture for no apparent reason. Maybe it was a subconscious acknowledgment that after spending 40 years on this planet that at this point I almost prefer the company of a feline friend, because I'm learning more from them, as much as I do the human kind. Yet I'd like to think that it's more about there is no more noble reason to live than to try to make someone else's life just a little bit better. And I've come to the conclusion that the effort might be better appreciated by the four-legged species (or three-legged as the case may be) than the two legged kind I've recently run across.

The other change was the purchase of a scooter which has ended up changing not only my overall view of transportation, but has also given me a greater appreciation of the world around me. When you're not isolated in the cocoon of a heap of metal and glass you can't hide behind air conditioned or heated comfort. When you are constantly exposed to the elements not to mention the potentially fatal implications of trying to deal with people around you who may not be paying much attention, you find yourself hyper-aware of the things going on around you and in my case I have found I appreciate the sights and smells and sounds of things just a little bit more.

The other day I was scooting all over town on one of the few sunny days we've seen around these parts in over a month. I was nearby a Cost Cutters and my hair, now the length of Chewbacca's, was really bothering me so I stopped in and got it cut. No sooner was I hopping back on my scooter when out of nowhere it started to rain even though the sun was still beaming through the few clouds in the sky. It continued to rain all the way home and by the time I parked my scooter in my garage I was rather drenched. Just as I was entering my house the rain stopped and the sun's bright beams that shone the rest of the afternoon seemingly mocked my very existence.

Just as I throwing my hands up to give up once and for all, the third cat, young Thelonious as he is wont to do, came and played ignoring the anti-social nature the others, Thompson and Diego-san have tried to teach him is the cool thing to do when I'm in such an agitated state. It wasn't long before Theo got out his favorite crinkly ball and we were endlessly playing fetch. As he scampered after the ball, retrieving and dropping it at my feet anxious for its next flight, the other two Boyz made sure to stay out of Theo's path, and at the same time made indications that they were thinking about (ever so deeply as cats constantly seem to do) what the implications, end result, and timing of such a decision would ultimately be.

All this reminded me of a moment with a boss, Jenny Engh, I'll always have the utmost respect for, where and when she turned the corner and ran into me and for no apparent reason said, "I've discovered the meaning of life. It's to always remain curious and to keep learning." I'll never be sure why Jenny said this to me at that moment but I'm finally beginning to understand and appreciate what she meant. You begin to get old the moment you stop trying to learn about new things as difficult and painful as the learning process often is.

I recently found myself at a Twins game munching down a brat and being an involuntary captive audience to the discussion of the two men behind me. It often amazes me that people will talk about things and not care one hoot about who hears them. The two men obviously weren't much fans of baseball as they kept talking about how if they didn't use softballs in batting practice, the Yankee hitters would be peppering every batting practice pitch into the Metrodome's upper deck. I almost turned around then and burst their illusion that those were actually baseballs being hit, but I didn't. It was then the older sounding man asked the other, "What's the park that they can actually hit the ball into the ocean?" To which the younger man (and to give him the benefit of the doubt I'll have to admit he sounded teenage-ish) replied, "Um, I think it's Chicago..."

At this point I have to admit I am an absolute baseball snob. It is my one bias I can purely identify though I'm sure others exist. I don't care what other character flaws may exist but if a person truly understands and appreciates the beauty of the game of baseball (and there are seemingly few who do) I can forgive them most of their other transgressions.

Having such biases seems to be part of our human nature. (It may even go beyond that- I've noticed that Thompson, like Mr. Max before him- is much more likely to be trusting of our female visitors than he is of any male who steps into the house.) And after having seen the movie Crash this past week I have to say the topic of personal bias weighs heavy on my mind this very moment. The movie has its flaws but it isn't one that you can watch and not think about afterwards. I was so glad when my friend who came along said to me (even though she still isn't sure she liked the movie), "Everyone should see it."

The only truly great movie I've ever seen dealing with the subject of racism is Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Usually racism in movies is handled in a black and white manner. The racists are cartoonishly evil and their victims are on the short list of who will be the next Pope. A good example of this was the 1996 Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock movie A Time to Kill. That movie argued that some race based murders may very well be justified, especially when you're murdering some buffoonish evil pickup truck drivers. It's easy to approve of killing when the people you are killing have no redeeming qualities.

What Lee did so powerfully in Do the Right Thing was create a situation that explodes in racial tension and the viewer can clearly understand why all the characters acted in the way they did. Sure we might not have agreed that they did the right thing, but you can clearly see why they thought they were living up to the title of the movie.

Paul Haggis' Crash comes close to Do the Right Thing in its unblinking look at racism. It's easy to agree to dislike a racist if that person has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It's another thing to have to balance a person's good qualities with that which brings out the ugliest side of many of us. There's a scene early in Crash where a white woman makes a defensive gesture when she and her husband are approaching two young black men. It's not an unusual or broad gesture and yet one of the two young men is quick to pick up on it and some of his anger and jaded life view seem suddenly a bit justified.

Crash tells several interlocking stories about people of all color and place in life. There's the rich black couple that get pulled over by a racist cop who molests the wife and leaves the two arguing whether the other is black enough. There's the district attorney and his wife who are carjacked by two black men leading to the wife (Bullock) ranting about not wanting a Hispanic locksmith changing the locks on their home. (He's tattooed, got a shaved head and is sure to give his "homies" a copy of the house key.) There's the Iranian shopkeeper who tries to buy a gun from a man who calls him an Arab even though the man is Persian. There's the crime scene investigator who doesn't bother to differentiate the nationality of the woman he's sleeping with to his mother who thinks he has sold out his own race and brother.

If nothing else Crash makes an effective point that the root of racism may not be so much hatred as it is anger. Scene after scene the anger seeps from the encounters between the film's characters. This is an angry society we live in and that anger often leads to misunderstanding and ignorance. It often hurt me growing up when I'd come across those who would slant their eyes with their fingers and call me a "Chink." I got by that by telling myself that I wished that if they were going to be such bigots that at least they could make the effort to get it right. The slur was meant for Chinese and if they wanted to accurately label me the least they could do was call me the "Jap" I was and am.

There's a small moment in Crash that made me appreciate Sandra Bullock the actress even if I didn't appreciate Sandra Bullock's character in the movie. It was when after a painful day she reaches out to the nearest person (who happened to be of an ethnicity she recently revealed a hatred for) and reveals that the person (her maid) is ironically her best friend. She wrings out the complexity of the moment with such emotion that it is hard to watch. The movie clearly demonstrates we all have our ugly judgmental sides that if logically analyzed would sour like the contents of a long expired carton of milk.

Yes we are all crashing into each others in total lack of understanding but as bleak as the movie is, there is a slight uplifting thread about how the actions of one person to conteract this unending cycle may actually be able to start to make a change, as small as it may seem. And that ripple, maybe just maybe, just be enough.

Mary and Aimee

I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but I think I'm in love with Mary Lucia. It would probably be enough that everybody's favorite local radio personality is a sheepish owner of three cats but there was a moment on a recent show that made me laugh harder than I've laughed in many a year.

Ms. Lucia was interviewing the songwriter of a local band (I forget which band) and asked him a great, though somewhat Barbara Waltersesque question, "Are there any songs out there that you wish you had written?"

The local artist thought for a moment and then said, "Yes. I wish I had written Burt Bacharach's 'Trains and Boats and Planes.'" Ms. Lucia then replied, "Hmmm. Do you also wish you had married Dionne Warwick?" The chiding, lyrical, playful tone to her voice was pitch perfect and the band and the songwriter chuckled at the spontaneous question and I nearly had to pull my car over I was laughing so hard.

Yet the only complaint I have so far about Ms. Lucia's station 89.3 (THE CURRENT!) is there has been far too much Aimee Mann. Judging by the amount of air time Aimee has gotten, man the DJ's seem to adore her music.

Not that I dislike Aimee Mann's music. I always kind of thought Til Tuesday was head and shoulders above other like bands from the same time who got far more acclaim (Crowded House for one) and Mann's solo work has been consistently rewarding. Her contributions to the Magnolia soundtrack are equal parts soul searching, soul saving, and soulfully devastating.

Aimee will also always occupy a soft spot in my heart for her appearance on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the episode her band was playing at the Bronze when a vampire fell from the rafters above and landed with a splat, disintegrating into dust. The band stops playing. and then picks up the song exactly where they left off. Later as they are leaving the bar Aimee deadpans, "That's why I hate playing vampire towns."

My complaint is more based on I haven't heard all that much Liz Phair or Lucinda Williams on 89.3, everyone's favorite public radio music station, and there are a slew of mostly overlooked artists who for me far outshine Aimee Mann.

No Aimee isn't one of those artists whose each and every new release I make an effort to rush out to hear. And when I read several lukewarm reviews to her new CD, The Forgotten Arm, I wasn't exactly inclined to go seek out the new music.

I read that Forgotten Arm was a "theme CD" that told a story of a down and out boxer. Seeing that my most favorite recent movie was Million Dollar Baby and my favorite TV show from the past season was The Contender one would almost think that I have somehow become a boxing fanatic and that Mann's CD would be something I'd automatically want to hear. But beat me up with a padded glove and add to my misery, I really didn't see any need to complete the obvious triangle that lay down before me.

I was wrong. I wish I hadn't waited so long in buying The Forgotten Arm. Mann's writing is its usually sharp self and her sad sardonic vocals add to the story but the overall impact of the blows struck surprised me. This isn't kid's stuff and it's probably my favorite story based CD since Frank Sinatra's Watertown. It surely kicks Lou Reed's similar attempts like Songs for Drella and Magic and Loss all over the musical mat.

The CD packs a subtly powerful punch. The thread of the story details the disintegration of a couple. The boxer is a boozer. He's taken one too many hits, lost one too many fights and there's substance abuse that leads to emotional abuse and the couple's love has long since ceased to mean much at all to either participant. The couple is trying to figure out where to go, what to do even if it's long past time, way too far down the road where things can possibly work out ever again.

Though the CD is more than a bit of a downer, line after line, song after song build a picture and one begins to understand why this is a story the artist wanted to tell. "Life just kind of empties out, less a deluge than a drought, less a giant mushroom cloud than an unexploded shell..." and "Tell you I'm sorry that I made you a witness to my moral decay..." and "We stayed in our Calvins, and we swore we'd be best friends. And I looked through the zoom lens, and thought you were beautiful. Sometimes it hurts me to feel so much tenderness..."

The packaging of the CD is great. It's laid out to look like a pulp fiction novel and the hand drawn pencil sketches that accompany each song's (chapter's) lyrics skillfully match the mood of Mann's voice. The songs might be able to stand on their own but repeated listening reveals that each piece adds to the whole like fine china stacked neatly in its nearly empty wooden cupboard.

This Place Don't Make Sense to Me No More- Part One

ONCE UPON NINE LIVES AGO, there stood a humble faux brick abode in the heart of aging Familyville. Inside the walls of this less than sturdy fortress lived three boys who sometimes merely co-existed but often times came to realize they were in this thing, whatever this thing can possibly be about, together.

Boof Bonser was a handsome boy. He had a perpetually sad look upon his face but the spot to the right of his nose was perfectly imperfect and his expressive eyes only hinted at the depth of his caring albeit worried heart. Boof had grown up in the wild, roaming the tamed wilderness of a metropolitan park. One day his curiosity got the best of him and he took a step where he shouldn't have stepped. That fraction of a moment cost Boof his leg and forever set in motion the chain of events that would be the rest of his life.

Fred Smoot joined Boof when Fred was just a few months old. The two immediately bonded. Fred was impossibly dashing with his long dark hair and a piercing set of green eyes that could melt the polar ice cap on the coldest of days. It was his nature to be friendly and loving though he tried to keep that weapon of his arsenal quite secret. Where Boof had issues that would make some reluctant to accept him, there was nothing about Fred Smoot that to the naked eye was anything but charismatic and charming.

Boof and Fred ended up together and after a period of necessary adjustment they became inseparable, almost enough so that you could describe them as best of friends.

One day out of the blue the two were joined by a youngster named Nick Punto. Punto was a playful young boy with spacey eyes. Just a few weeks after his birth his trusting nature got the best of him and he was sat on by someone playing too rough and not paying attention at all. Nick's back legs weren't broken but they couldn't be used. The doctors thought that he may never be able to use them again. But Nick Punto was nothing but someone adept at adapting and he learned to get along with what he still had. And where some would have become jaded by the experience, Nick never let it affect his wondrous outlook on life. To him all the world was a playground. And he loved to show his affection to whoever came along.

Boof Bonser and Fred Smoot weren't so quick to accept Nick Punto into their home. At first it was a matter of not knowing what to make of him. Where Boof and Fred had learned over time, like the ocean waves wearing down rocks into sand, to be weary and a bit guarded towards the unknown, Nick Punto had not gotten to the same point yet.

To Boof and Fred Nick's relentless playfulness was tiresome and where they sometimes really needed their quiet and solitude Nick would often egg them on, leaping at them unexpectedly and from every angle imaginable.

All three boys were raised in the Maxolic church believing that if you lived in fear of your sins and truly repented and asked for forgiveness after accepting the truth of the higher being that a tenth life was possible in some higher plain of being. Like many religions being a Maxolic meant believing in things that you had never seen though there was plenty of proof in existing touch and smell that something greater once truly existed.

To watch the three boys day to day was to rediscover the blessing of learning something new each and every day. They may have all been created in an equal place under different circumstances but they all three found themselves sharing a space, a life together whether they wanted to or not. They were as similar as they were different and though they might not have been more than a blip on the radar outside their walls, they all three made this world a slightly better place.

Numb Skull

"And when the time comes round, we will be duty bound/To tell the truth of what we've seen and what we haven't found/Will not be going down, despite too easy ride to see/From a lover to a friend take your own advice/Let me love again. Now that you turned out to be, someone I can trust, someone I believe..."
-Paul McCartney

I'm not sure if numbness runs in my family but it sure seems to be running up and down various parts of my anatomy over the past few years.

Last year about this time I was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy, a disease that rendered the left side of my face droopy and numb. With a little acupuncture and adding a little herb to my diet, my face regained its perpetual frown in no time at all.

This year I have been diagnosed with cervical radiculopathy. The two friends who have expressed the most concern with my suffering happen to be two who are a long ways a way (one in Hawaii and one in Blue Earth County). Go figure. I figured my closest friends would at the very least organize some all night televised marathon for me. It's the least they could do after all. It sucks getting old.

It might be noted for the record that the diagnosis sounds worse than the actual suffering involved. Even my doctor admitted that. Cervical radiculopathy is the medical term for having a pinched nerve in the neck. For years I have had a tingling in my shoulder and recently that mostly annoying but sometimes pleasing sensation spread down my arm to my hand. My forefinger feels like it's always asleep now an affliction similar to the state of my brain for the past six years or so.

When I finally got around to calling my health care people once they heard the words "tingling" and "left side of my body" they told me I had to come in to urgent care. That evening it was determined I didn't have cancer, M.S. or carpal tunnel. I met with one doctor and then days later I met with another (the same one who diagnosed me with Bell's Palsy though she didn't recognize me. Must have been the non-droopy demeanor). With a prescription of an anti-inflammatory drug in hand and an appointment to see a physical therapist scheduled, I went on my merry way.

On my way home I popped in Lucinda Williams' new live CD. Looking at the packaging I must say I was a bit disappointed by the song list. Most of the songs are from her last two CDs and the inclusion of such dirge-like songs like "Joy" and "Atonement" didn't do much for me. Still when she got to "Reason to Cry" I just about did. It's my second favorite performance of the song- right up there with when I was riding with the Grad Student and she sang along with Lucinda. Man she hit the right notes on that ride.

Thankfully the slight discomfort was further alleviated when I finally found out who murdered Veronica Mars' best friend Lily and that Veronica wasn't actually raped nor did she have sex with her brother. Veronica Mars is the show getting all the buzz if you don't count Desperate Housewives. A lot of critics are saying that it is as good as Buffy in its writing and its depiction of the angst of growing up. I thus had to tune in to see what all the praise was all about.

I indeed saw that Veronica Mars is a smartly written show that deftly mixes black humor with insight. Most every character has a dark side including the dour blonde Veronica herself, and the standard operating procedure seems to be to do whatever best suits your individual needs and deal with the consequences later.

Later that night I had a long talk with a friend down in Florida. The purpose of the call was to talk about the shape of my soul, admittedly a little ragged, worn, and torn these days. She sent me a book about the story of life and suggested I read the book of Romans in the Bible. "I'll say a prayer for you," she said and I thanked her profusely. I was glad to hear she is doing well.

"Of everything in this world I guess I'll never know why/Something as good as this could flower up and die/When you lost your happiness when no one's standing by/When nothing makes any sense, you've got a reason to cry..."

The Woodpecker

I was driving to work the other day and listening to the news when a story came on telling how a bird observer down in Louisiana had seen an Ivory Billed Woodpecker, quite a remarkable sighting considering that the bird was declared extinct years ago.

The news made my ears perk up. I've long been an admirer of those who show skillful survival abilities against the odds. Almost all of the people I admire most have stories of being counted out at one point or another only to stage some type of comeback. This was the all time comeback story. Imagine having your species declared down for the count forever and yet there you are. You're still bleeping there. I almost turned my car around to head back home to tell my three boyz the news. Their reaction probably would have mirrored any reaction I could get at work at 6:30 in the blessed a.m.

Having become a complete scooterhead these days this was one of the few recent mornings that I was actually glad I was in my car. This spring hasn't exactly been abundant with ideal scooter riding weather. Every night before I hop into bed I listen to the weather forecast for the next day. The forecast more often than not either calls for unseasonably cold weather or worse, for drizzle, showers, and rain. I go to bed hoping and sometimes praying that they are wrong.

I then wake up thinking this might be the morning that my prayers have been answered. I look out the window hoping it isn't raining and as MPR's Cathy Wurzer tells me the temp at 5:10 a.m. I try to tell myself that since it's above freezing maybe it won't be too cold to scooter.

Alas more often than not I soon find myself snug as a slug in my rusting and dying car wishing I could be zooming along on my scooter, Marco the Nimrod. One advantage to driving to work in my car is that I can listen to the radio. It's a luxury I don't have when I'm out in the open where I could in theory put on some headphones underneath my California Highway Patrol style helmet. I don't want to do that though because I'm trying to be ultra-alert to everything going on around me knowing I probably won't come out the winner in a collision between me and another vehicle.

The few times I have been able to ride my scooter I fill the music void by singing at the top of my lungs. Of course the obvious choice of song would be the cliché motorized two wheel anthem, "Born to Be Wild" but as I was searching for my own personal theme song to sing on my scooter my mind flashed back to the Rutles' "Cheese and Onions" Lord knows why.

"I have always thought in the back of my mind/Cheese and Onions/I have always thought/That the world was unkind/Cheese and Onions/Do I have to spell it out?/C-H-E-E-S-E- A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S- Oh no/Man and machine/Keep yourself clean/I'll be a has- been/Like a dinosaur/My device for everything nice/You better think twice/At least once more..."

As weary as I've been I came home the other night and trying to make the most of my Netflix subscription I plopped my rented DVD, Seabiscuit into my DVD player. I must say I've never seen a better sports related movie. God almighty the movie is good.

Granted the cinematic sports genre is full of many clunkers so the competition isn't all that great. The only movie that has ever made me boo the screen was the dreadful The Natural. And unfortunately my extreme disliking of that movie happens more often than not when watching a sports related movie. Sports can be so inspiring, so poetic, so beautiful and yet when movies try to capture these aspects they usually fall far short.

Seabiscuit is the exception. The movie manages to capture the beauty and the danger of horse racing and still it's really not about the sport itself. Like all my favorite movies there are themes about redemption and loss and overcoming odds. The movie is about misfits rising above expectations and finding another who can inspire you to live up to the potential that exists within. That it also captures the relationship that can develop between man and animal and how one can push the other to be something greater, is something to behold and treasure.

I loved this movie. Chris Cooper's performance as the trainer, Tom Smith is remarkable and makes this a must see movie all by itself. Seabiscuit is the kind of movie that makes you want to go out into the world and make a difference or at least join the land of the living one more time before you give up faith knowing your lucky horseshoe can never make a difference in a land full of indifference. I watched this movie with a three-legged cat sound asleep on my chest feeling as peaceful as he can in this dangerous world. When it was done I was inspired to hop on my scooter and just ride, didn't matter where.

I Could Have Been Somebody

I don't know if "reality TV" has been so dubbed because it's supposed to reflect anything that's actually going on outside that big black box in the corner of my living room. More likely it's been called that because nothing that happens on those shows has been written and we all know that nothing written is ever real.

I've been a huge fan of the original network reality show Survivor, ever since its inception. Yes I know the show is utterly predictable and dumb but I've always been quite entertained by all the conniving and scheming done by groups of good looking albeit more often than not, rather vacuous people.

This season started off the same as always despite the twists the producers have tried to introduce. Immediate lapses in judgment led to poor strategy by a couple of people who apparently have never seen the show before. The one thing all Survivor players should know by now is that the one thing you do not want to do at the beginning of the adventure is to call attention to yourself. You don't want to be too bossy or assume that it is a good idea to try and be a leader, a loner, or an eccentric. If you stick out you're gonna have this huge target tattooed on to your back and you're gonna get voted off pronto.

Sure enough the first person booted off of Survivor Palau was a woman who thought she'd entertain everyone else by belting out songs she had written about the show. While the others rowed their boat toward shore this woman annoyed them all by not only not helping row but by singing some rather dreadful songs.

The plot twist this season was that the first two people ashore got to be captains and they chose the next person they wanted on their team. That person then chose the next and so on. The singer/songwriter of course did not get chosen. As the teams were formed it appeared to be a mismatch. One team contained all the young, athletic, good looking people while the others had the misfits and old people. Surprise of surprises the young athletic team did not win an entire immunity challenge and all of their tribe members have now been voted off.

Up until this season my all time favorite Survivor was Elisabeth Filarski who parlayed her charm and sweet personality into a full time gig co-hosting the ABC daytime talk show, The View. However one of this season's Survivors, Stephenie, has moved to the top of my heart by showing she was perhaps the best female participant ever. She kicked butt in the immunity challenges even though her team never won one. She out hustled, out performed and outwitted the rest of her team. When she ultimately joined the opposing team, her odds in surviving were minimal because not only was she the odd person out, but she was seen as a threat for her prowess in challenges.

There reached a point where Janu, a whiny Las Vegas dancer wanted out and she let her teammates know by completely isolating herself and shutting down. Still some wanted to vote out Stephenie first, because they didn't see Janu being a threat in any way shape or form. At the next tribal council Stephenie soon began to realize she was in trouble. As it dawned on her she began to cry. She said it wasn't fair (and it wasn't) that because she had done so well she was apparently done while there was another who was asking to get voted off and she apparently wasn't going to get her wish.

I didn't realize that Stephenie's competitive drive had gotten to me until the tears began to stream down my own cheeks. It wasn't the first time in my life a Stephenie made me bawl. But that's another story of course. Since that particular Stephanie, my life has somehow morphed into being about all kitties all the time. Sometimes I think living with the three that they have formed a Survivor like alliance and if we had a vote on who to kick out of this house I'd be the first to go.

But then again if this house was actually made into a reality show (or at least something real) it would be more like NBC's The Contender. That show kicks Survivor's butt because the actual demise of its contestants is to lose a hard fought boxing match not some kind of goofy contrived challenge and the show if nothing else has shown over its run that boxing is a rather brutal sport.

The Contender does a splendid job of effectively building the tension up to the actual fight. The mixture of realism and reality TV is highlighted by the presence of Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard both equally comical in their attempts at analyzing what is going on. I'm not sure if Sly realizes he was never an actual championship boxer, and I'm not sure if Sugar Ray realizes he was never the entertainer Ali was, but if they came over to my house they could maybe help me sort out the pecking order between Diego-san, Thompson, and young Theo. When the boyz wrestle I'm not sure if they're playing or if they're playing for real. All I know is this isn't the Real World and yet I'm still game in playing along.

Listen Up

As long as we're talking about conversation based movies I gotta say the oddest one I've ever heard is Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's 2004 Talk to Her.

I'm not exactly sure what the movie is about but the plot involves two men bonding because the one thing they have in common is they are both in love with women who happen to share the unique affliction of being in comas. Marco is a travel writer who falls in love Lydia, a female bullfighter (I can't tell you how many times that has happened to me). Lydia ends up sustaining a work-related injury and ends up in a hospital (also an all too often occurrence in my life).

It is there where Marco meets Benigno a male nurse who is in love with Alicia a dancer he longed for months before she is hit by a car on the street that separates his apartment from her dance studio. Benigno's extra special care of his comatose patient is a little creepy and Almodovar doesn't hide this in lingering scenes where the nurse is giving his patient a sponge bath.

It's not clear if the movie expects us to be touched or repulsed when Benigno tells Marco he has never been more in love, nor has he had a better relationship than he has with Alicia despite her inability to respond to everything he has ever said to her.

While she was still a conscious human being Alicia enjoyed silent movies. Thus Benigno makes it a point to go to as many as he can so he can tell her all about the movies she is now missing. This leads to one of the most disturbing scenes I have ever watched in a movie. It is a simulated silent movie where a man shrinks much to his lover's chagrin. He ends up literally crawling up inside her. The visuals of the scene made me cringe and I'm sure I'll be talking to my therapist about this nightmarish imagery for the rest of my life.

Eventually there is a scandal of course and Benigno ends up in prison where Marco's support and friendship becomes invaluable. There's something lovely about the conversations between the two men and their devotion to the women that remain a part of their lives.

Talk to Her was made before the Terri Schiavo situation became front page news (at least in this country). The movie raises thought provoking questions about the nature of relationships (how much does one have to converse with another to actually qualify as being in love?); it also delves into what a human spirit consists of (if the brain ceases to function does the spirit survive?). It's a beautifully shot and directed movie, well acted and almost always intriguing to watch. Yet it's also a somewhat manipulative movie and the silent movie scene itself is so bizarre and calls so much attention to itself it's difficult to imagine anyone can truly say in the end they enjoyed watching this film.

As creepy as much of Benigno's behavior is, his love and devotion to one who would likely not love him back if she was actually conscious, is in its way very sweet. He makes it his duty to take it upon himself to try and keep Alicia connected to the things she once loved in life even if science has defined her situation as hopeless.

At the heart of the movie is the question of whether to qualify as an actual conversation, the exchange has to include give and take from both participants. Is it good enough to intuitively feel a connection or does the other person have to communicate that all too rare occurrence with actual clunky words? When we're all alone in solitude (or in a house full of lovable kitties) is the dialogue/ monologue we carry on meaningful enough or is it just a symptom of some form of insanity?

At the same time if words can be heard but not fully comprehended or at least responded to on any level does that qualify for a conversation? Can humans definitely connect on a strictly non verbal level? Talk to Her ends with a scene involving Marco and Alicia and though those characters alliance relies soley on others there is something significant and beyond words in their self imposed limited exchange.