Still – I’m glad I saw it again. The visual artistry is worth a second take. I noticed a lot visually that I missed the first time and I look forward to a sequel.

After all, it’s not as if James Cameron doesn’t warn us about the simplicity of his parable. If the stereotypical characters don’t jump out at you early on, by the time you hear the word “unobtainium,” you should have a clue.  James Cameron’s forte has always been special effects.  An old story with a new look works for him (and apparently his audience). Everyone who saw Titanic knew the outcome before they entered the theater.

I suspect James Cameron has great fun making movies, and I think he wants his audiences to have fun, too.  Nothing wrong with that.  Giving the Nav’i elongated canine teeth  is such a clear ploy for today’s vampire popularity that it’s laughable. He probably threw in many of Avatar’s other cliches and plot deficits just for fun, too (perhaps to see if we’d notice).  Cameron’s close enough to my age that I’m sure he saw the same old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies on TV that I did as a youngster. In Avatar, the only thing missing when the deus-ex-machina beasties stampede in to save the Nav’i is this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And from what I’ve read, it seems most people (including reviewers) come away from Avatar with the message they took into the theater beforehand. The rejecters reject the same things they always reject, the admirers admire the same things they always admire.  Appreciating good art is like that – the best art offers each of us an intimate subjective experience. With Avatar, gamers get a techie game, spiritual seekers get transcendence (although some devout reject Avatar altogether as promoting paganism), environmentalists get ecological connectivity, pessimists get to feel depressed because Earth isn’t as sublime as Pandora, optimists get to hope Earth is becoming Pandora.  Lots of good guys and bad guys to go around – with cross-overs and a paradox or two.

Here’s what I walked into the theater with: I am fortunate enough to live in an area where Earth’s vibrant glory is readily accessible and visually competes damn well with anything you can create digitally. This, of course,  keeps me fairly optimistic about life in general and our environmental direction in particular. Though not religious – spiritually, I lean toward nonduality.

Here’s the message I took out of the theater: The  Nav’i R Us.  We are rejecting our small, violent selves and becoming something larger. We are connected to all life, but life itself is a school and there are often mortal risks associated with learning to make the important connections. Ultimately, caring and connectivity will prevail and we’ll choose to banish our small, violent selves.

But the best thing about Avatar is this: popular movies are a reflection of our cultural consciousness. Even if the ideas are presented in elemental terms to reach the masses, ticket sales in response to Avatar’s themes of environmental responsibility and global connectivity represent very positive trends.

I had fun, too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I really enjoyed this video of Louis CK on Conan O’Brien though I disagree with Louis CK’s specific admonishment of the younger generation. Perpetual malcontent is unfortunately a cross-generational phenomenon. I see just as many malcontents in my own generation (baby boomers). Perhaps the discontent is for different reasons, but whining is whining.

For me,  crankiness in youth is almost more understandable than the perpetual grouch I see in some elders.  By the time you reach mid-life and beyond, you should have gained some  perspective about life’s cycles and unpredictability. So life didn’t turn out just the way you expected – get over it. Stop trying to control others – you can’t. Stop bitching about what isn’t and rediscover the magic of what is.  This moment is what you’ve got.  Live, love, laugh.

“He who no longer pauses to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

I am also not a big fan of rituals – funerals, of course, being one of my least favorites. I understand all the traditional grief-resolution arguments about funerals; I have planned some and attended many – some beautiful, some bordering on ridiculous. The most ridiculous are those with the strongest discontinuity between the deceased’s life and the subsequent eulogism. Nonetheless, I have a reasonable tolerance of other people’s need for ritual. I understand I’m the oddball.

Griz and I, however, have both made specific requests in our wills for NO FUNERAL. One of us will probably have the luxury of expecting this request to be honored. We have both requested cremation with our ashes to be scattered at sea -  if such can be easily arranged and if sea-scattering is still legal. I suppose the scattering might provide an opportunity for ritual if any survivors feel inclined – not much you can do about it from the ash side of things.

Though I have not specified it in my will, I have discussed alternative ash disposal methods with those close to me. For the record, beneath a big cedar tree is a current favorite. But my attachment to the ultimate disposition of this mortal vessel is so minimalistic, that down the toilet or into the compost heap would not offend. One of my environmental goals, after all,  is to leave no visible footprint.  However, if the compost heap is where I land, I would like to request no brussels sprouts be grown from that particular soil. I have never acquired a taste for brussels sprouts:  it’s odd really – I love most varieties of cabbage. Perhaps I’ll evolve through that particular distaste on the “ash side of things.”

I did not watch the Michael Jackson memorial at Staples Center; but, of course, I have been brushed by the news bytes and commentary – pro and con. Participating in such a super-bowlesque extravaganza for ANY reason is almost beyond my comprehension, but I don’t deride those who did. It seems a fitting element of grief resolution for the family and friends of a talented musician who lived virtually his whole life in the public eye. Music and entertainment are integral to his siblings’ lives as well – this family needed this.

A friend directed me to the video of Jermaine Jackson’s touching rendition of Smile. I was particularly moved because Smile was one of my father’s favorite songs – something I didn’t even know until I was caring for Dad at the end of his life. Smile was originally a song of my father’s generation and was written by Charlie Chaplin.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Music, family ties, loss and grief are cross-cultural and cross-generational. Even someone as ritualistically flippant as me is moved when I’m reminded of the profound universality of our humanness.

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The film is food for thought on many levels. Noland is clearly a different man after his four years of solitude.  The life he left behind has also changed – people have moved on without him, including the love of his life.

Naturally, I was most fascinated with the challenges Noland faced while on the island. Contemplating how you would fair facing similar circumstances is part of the movie’s fun. The daily challenge of survival at a subsistence level is a lot different than choosing a comfortable level of solitude with access to modern amenities.

Would you (as Chuck Noland does) anthropomorphize a volleyball for someone to talk with?  How long would it take before you decided to risk all and leave the relative, though uncomfortable, safety of the island to challenge the sea on a rickety raft?

Personally, if there was any other life on the island (birds, rodents, or even non-toxic reptiles), I’d like to think I’d try for a relationship with one of them over talking to an inanimate object.  On the other hand, you don’t want to ultimately face having to eat a creature you’ve befriended – no protein in a volleyball.

As much as I treasure solitude, surviving at a subsistence level holds little appeal for me. It would be a laborious challenge alone – not a game like we see on television’s Survivor and Lost which were both developed after Cast Away’s success.

Although I can find genuine contentment in relative simplicity, and I’m fairly certain I could do well without much human interaction, trying to survive without books might launch my raft off the island – a library or die.

One episode that caught my attention guest-starred the late Jeanette Nolan [1911-1998] as Dirty Sally Fergus, a cantankerous, tobacco chewing, rough-talking, hard-drinking, 60-something, junk lady who scrounged westbound, wagon-train trails for discards; and peddled her finds in Dodge City. Sally lived alone in a shack outside of town - a very memorable female hermit! And a Western written in the 1970′s, spotlighting any elderly, solitary female is as rare as those records of real-life 19th-century female hermits.

The Dirty Sally Gunsmoke episode involves a young gunfighter named Cyrus Pike (played by the late Dack Rambo) who Sally hides in her shack and nurses back to health. But it was Nolan’s fascinating Sally that drew me in to the episode. Apparently her portrayal also drew attention when originally aired. A spin-off series, Dirty Sally, evolved from the episode and ran for one 13-week season in 1974. Nolan was nominated for an Emmy for her role in the short-lived series.

Jeanette Nolan had a 70 year acting career. She was in her 60′s at the time she portrayed Dirty Sally. I have great admiration for actresses who willingly relinquish the roles of youth to become successful character actors in their elder years. In the case of Dirty Sally – Nolan actually played the role without her dentures.

Jeanette Nolan continued acting. At the age of 86 she played Robert Redford’s mother in The Horse Whisperer [1998] which was released a month before her death.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Lottery Commission put a few bucks into the ad. It’s not like some middle-aged hang-glider just wandered in with the video and wondered if anyone wanted to use it.  The ad is a joint effort of  Publicis West, Sticks+Stones Studios and FisherEdit/Fisher FX. The birds were never more than a few feet off the ground, filmed in front of a green screen. (No birds were hurt or scared shitless filming this ad.)

The ad is supposed to make you realize all the crazy/wonderful things you can do (for less fortunates) if you win a bundle of money playing the lottery. If there was surge in lottery sales this year, it probably has less to do with the ad and more to do with tough economic times - which tend to increase gambling dollars spent close to home.

Subtext should include the fact that you have about as much chance of winning the lottery as the poor emu has of flying (with or without a hang-glider).

Washington State lottery dollars are distributed at approximately this split: 61% to winners; 20% to school construction (the best thing); 15% administrative & sales costs; 2.5% to sports stadiums; .06 % to economic development; .05% to address problem gambling.

Washington State is a big gambling state. The Washington State government profits from many gambling venues:  partnering on some, regulating some, totally directing others and accepting large sums of lobbying dollars.  The venues include the lottery, private card rooms, pull tabs, a large number of Indian casinos; and para-mutual (horse race) wagering.

Ironically (and ostensibly to save us all from ourselves), the Washington legislature has made playing online poker in the privacy of your own home a felony (on a par with sexual assault and distribution of pornography).  The law was passed rapidly, fueled by incidents of teenagers running up huge credit card debt at online poker sites and with the help of large sums of lobbying dollars from Indian casinos.

Teenagers running up huge online gambling debts is a parenting problem, not an online gambling problem. When online poker was legal, one could play for as little as 5 or 10 cents per wager – a fun option for people who want to play poker without investing a lot of money.  Minimums at brick-and-mortar casinos run between $3 and $5 per wager with $100 minimum buy-ins for poker games.  Poker involves skill – it’s not a blind game of chance – like lotteries.  Minimum purchase price for any of the multitude of available Washington lottery games is $1.00 per ticket.    What’s wrong with this picture?

Like the UIEGA, the Washington State legislation falls back on the idea that online poker players risk being cheated by unregulated off-shore sites.  There have been incidents of cheating and intentional fraud, but overall, the online poker community has self-regulated. Like other online networks, online poker players spread the word fast – sites that allow cheating or intentionally defraud fade fast.

Cute flying fowl commercials don’t erase the hypocrisy of this “protectionist” legislation. The reality is this: Washington’s government encourages you to gamble – but not unless they get their rake from the pot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Proenneke lived in his cabin at Twin Lakes until he was 82 years old. He donated his cabin to the U.S. Park Service and it is now maintained as part of the Lake Clark National Park.

Proenneke retired to the Alaskan wilderness at age 51 in 1968.  He documented the building of his cabin and his life alone through written journals and 3000 ft. of 8 mm film. The first-person narration on  the DVDs is based on  Preonneke’s journals, but there seems to be some confusion (credit-wise) as to whose voice we are actually hearing - either one of the Swerers or Dick Proenneke’s nephew, Ray Proenneke, Jr. Whoever is speaking, the voice quality and simple narration are so perfect to the task that once engaged, the voice easily becomes Dick Proenneke’s to the viewer.

Proenneke spent the last several years of his life with his brother in California and lived long enough to view the edited film.

Even if you don’t consider yourself an outdoor person, don’t miss the opportunity to view “Alone in the Wilderness” at least once in its entirety. Footage of the Alaskan landscape and wildlife are great, but Proenneke’s reflections and explanations of his projects have a peaceful, spiritual quality that ups the fascination factor. If you have kids, watch it with them. Very few films so startlingly remind us of the difference between needs and wants.

“Someone out in a blizzard dressed in the lightest summer clothes is not as exposed as one who wills to be a solitary human being in a world where everything is alliance and accordingly, with the selfishness of the alliance, demands that one ally oneself with it until the individual protects himself against several alliances by becoming a member of one alliance, whereas the solitary, as soon as it has become obvious that he does not wish to enter into alliance with anyone, has all the alliances, joined together as one — a grandiose alliance! — against him.” - Soren Kierkegaard (1851)

I have never felt quite that solitary. I am a hermit by choice and pursue solitude in moderation (maintaining certain alliances) – but then Kierkegaard was talking about a radical (during his own life) – Jesus Christ.

There are two primary aspects of solitude, though – the external (no one else in proximity); and the internal (alone in one’s own thoughts, beliefs, or orientation). The latter is usually available even when the former is not – although accessing your internal solitude in a crowd can take a little practice.

There is also a big difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Loneliness is an emotional state and can be just as present in a bustling crowd as in the deep forest. I am alone a lot. I don’t remember the last time I felt lonely.

Staying healthy in solitude (physically and psychologically) requires a combination of both external and internal self-sufficiency. External self-sufficiency gives you the necessary level of skill, knowledge and confidence to physically take care of yourself (in forest, city or any other locale).  Internal self-sufficiency gives you the wisdom and psychological wholeness to make good decisions on your own behalf, feel content with them afterward, and find satisfaction and happiness with or without the applause or approval of others.

These aspects of self-sufficiency are valuable to everyone – not just hermits. In our hyper-connected culture, personal self-sufficiency tends to take a back seat to the mistaken belief there is always someone to call for help. I have serious concerns for people who are NEVER off their mobile phone, not just because of the traffic hazard they pose, but because they are never quiet enough to listen to their own thoughts, or practice any level of internal self-sufficiency.

You’ve seen these people at the grocery store – people who can’t decide which brand of pasta to buy without a phone consultation. I don’t know how they manage when they get to that “dead zone” on Aisle 10. You just know these are the same people who jam up the 911 system when the power goes out, whether or not they are facing any real danger. Of course, speaking as Dances-with-Bears, I know ”dangerous” is subjectively defined.  I don’t doubt that sitting in the dark with no television or internet connection could be a real terror for some. But perhaps their biggest night terror is the unfamiliar and unaccompanied sound of their own thoughts.

I do know if you don’t get adept at handling the little things, making those routine, unimportant decisions on your own – you won’t be ready in the critical situations when the big, difficult choices come along. And unless you lead an extremely sheltered life, they will come along.