Sometimes things just take time

I like when the unlikely character makes it.

A few years ago, I was watching Paris Je T'aime for the second time - having fallen asleep midway the last time it came on TV (not the film's fault, I was exhausted). I'm glad I stayed awake through to the end because the final story '14e Arrondissement' by Alexander Payne reached right inside me and made me cry. 

This was the genius of Margo Martindale - whose name, I'm ashamed to say I didn't know until last evening when the 2011 Emmys were broadcast in India. It was a great evening for unlikely characters. Peter Dinklage won. The funny women of American TV gathered en masse on stage and suddenly I had a glimpse of what the world might look like one day when more women were at the top of not just their game but THE game.

Miss Martindale is as far from the LA cookie-cutter star as your imagination can take you. She fumbles, bumbles, sobs most unprettily, does not have great posture or body, is not a 22-year-old 60 year old and she has never, until very recently, been recognized for her powerful talent.

Then this happens to her:

And in her acceptance speech I find the faith I sometimes struggle to have in my own life: "Sometimes things just take time..."

Memory loss

I can't sleep. Primetime newshour has rabid newscasters salivating over recently released recordings from 9/11. Can't flip a channel without the triumphant 'EXCLUSIVE' pasted over visuals of the WTC smoking & tumbling down in infinite loop. We're urged to appreciate the calmness of the inflight staff on doomed planes, to tune into the chilling frequencies of cold-blooded killers. We're asked to perform mass countdowns of the seconds to disaster.

Try not to forget, this is the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks on American soil.

Really, good people of the news channels, I won't. Especially since every couple of months (like the day before yesterday for example), the country I live in gets its own nasty little reminders. So what I need to know is this: what precisely do you want me to never forget? The voices on those tapes that I'll attach cinematic visuals to in my mind? That irrational near-conviction that if I paid close enough attention, I could alter the course of history allowing everything to end well? How do you propose we 'honour memories' through this continuous rinse cycle of broadcast tragedy? What do you propose I do with this insomnia?
Because if this is what you call 'rememberance' then I'd rather forget.
  

Street art by the charming Mr. Brainwash: Wikipedia him for shits & giggles. Better yet, watch 'Exit Through The Gift Shop'

Also do visit the blog 'Beings Akin' for a more nuanced perspective on 'what collective memory of the kind that is being expressed in the tenth anniversary commemorations of 9/11 is actually good for'.