Theaters to Thank

Earlier this week I went to the Music Box Theatre in Chicago for the first time. Opening in 1929, it's one of the oldest theaters in the city. Currently, the Music Box is a premiere venue for independent and foreign films. I was struck by theater's atmospheric architecture that consisted of a deep, cloudy blue ceiling, mimicking the night sky and eclectic, ornate decorations along the high walls. There was also an elaborate organ in the corner being played as my dad and I came in to take our seats.

The movie we saw was part of the Sundance Film Festival, called Two Days In New York. It was directed by french director Julie Delpy, who also played a main role in the film. Using her native language as a big part of the film, there were often English subtitles which I had to crane my head to read, due to the close-knit seating. After the screening, the co-writer Alexia Landeau, who was also an actress in the movie, was there to answer audience members' questions about the film. Julie Delpy was also available to answer questions via skype on the big screen, which was exciting.

Going to this theater was very different from seeing a movie at the places I normally go. It was an experience.  The theater wasn't showing twenty other movies at the same time, but focusing on one. This place truly appreciates the art of film, and is not concerned with having as many show-times as possible and making the most money. So, even though I had a sore neck the next day from the aforementioned neck-craning I didn't mind, because it was a part of this refreshing experience.

I think it's too bad that there aren't more of these types of theaters left today. Most of them have become very commercialized, and as I said, very clearly concerned with making money. Besides the Music Box, the only other theater in the area that hasn't given way to commercialization that I know of is  The Wilmette Theater. With movie tickets a good three dollars cheaper than at most other places, it is clear that they are less worried about making money and more concerned about the customers' experience. It is places like these that restore my hope that not everyone will give in to this growing American trend of valuing money more than the quality of experiences.

Meta-Post

Looking back and reading my past blogs was an entertaining experience. I definitely noticed both changes and common threads in the topics of my posts. There were obvious visual changes as well.

Whereas some of my earliest posts lacked pictures and even titles in some cases, my more recent posts always have a picture and an attempt at a creative title. Not to mention the length of my paragraphs have become shorter. The combination of these changes were undoubtedly an attempt to gain a larger audience. I couldn't help but compare these alterations to those between the different editions of Frederick Douglass' narrative. He adds chapter titles and has shorter paragraphs in his later writing as well. The main reason for this is because we both shared a similar goal of getting as many people as possibly to read our writing.

As for the topics of my posts, I noticed that a good number of them criticize America, something I didn't realize I was doing so frequently. More often than not, my criticism involves comparisons to different countries. In my Stealing Sushi post I claim "Americans tend to draw the line of moral relativism later than other countries." In We're Number One? (the title speaks for itself), I note that the United States is the largest oil consumer and has the highest obesity rate. Even in my Happy Halloween!! post I claim other countries center this holiday more around family and question if we have "gone too far in commercializing Halloween."

At first after revisiting my old posts, I was concerned that I am sending one of those secret messages we talked about earlier in the year. That message being that America is bad country, and I hate living here- none of which are true. In reality, I think America is a great country ("Land of the Free," "Melting Pot," "Land of Opportunity" and all that). Perhaps my criticism is a sort of a tough love for the country because I know we can do better.

Heros in Waiting

Today on the Ellen Degeneres Show I saw a story that particularly caught my attention. About a week ago, a man with three children in the car was driving on an icy road and Utah and the car slid into an icy river and became submerged. The driver was able to escape but the three children were trapped inside. Immediately a dozen people who had witnessed the accident were diving in to help. Thankfully, after a lot of effort the three children were saved.

Ellen had this family on the show, along with the twelve people who helped save them. Deeming them heros, she rewarded them by giving them all the presents from her previous "Twelve Day Give Away" special, valued at over $30,000. What really interested me though was the conversation that took place prior to give away. 

The driver on the car mentioned that something he took away form this experience was that we are "surrounded by heros-in-waiting." This made me think about the conversation we had in class earlier in the year regarding heros. What motivates people act heroically? Does seeing acts such as these being generously rewarded on television perhaps increase peoples' willingness to act heroically? Are we all "heros-in-waiting" (some more so than others)?

[The full video from Ellen's show can be watched here]

Wealth-->Health

Over winter break my family visited a very close friend of ours in California who, I discovered on this particular visit, is now eighty-eight years old. With majority of my grandparents passing away before reaching eighty, it came as a shock to me that she is able to live independently and is still sharp as a tack.

To me she has always been the sweet, old lady who sends me generous checks on my birthday and around christmas time. Putting two and two together, I can't help but suspect that her long life span must have something to do with the fact that she is and always has been wealthy.

Supporting this idea, I found an article from USA Today which talks about a psychologist who has conducted experiments indicating that health is not only determined by your genes, but by "your income, education...address," and even "the status your parents had when you were small. [See article here] This notion makes sense to me because the wealthier a person, the more easily they have access to medical care. Since America is full of plenty of wealthy people one would expect the country's average life expectancy to be a high number. After looking into this, I was surprised to see that in the CIA World Factbook the United States had only the fiftieth highest life expectancy. You can see the rankings here.

Does this mean that in actuality health and wealth do not have a strong correlation? Is one's longevity based more solely on genetics? Why don't Americans have a higher life expectancy?