Fail better

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

A site that lays out the spectacular failures of successful people.

And for reasons unclear to me, I think this piece fits - there's something wistful and regretful about it, but at the same time it's clear and beautiful, and becomes light-hearted sometimes.


The Finale of Haydn's Sonata No. 53 in E minor.

Week in Seven Words #79

chord
I love hearing people talk about a piece of writing that got to them in some way, whether they like it or not; the passion in their analysis is beautiful.

eyrie
The children's section of the bookstore is full of possibility and vision. Richly illustrated picture books show moonlit skies, animals reveling in meadows, wizards roaming the woods with wands flashing. The walls sing with color. It's sequestered from the rest of the store, a world apart from the blander adult aisles, the racks of sweatshirts and wrinkled magazines.

goodwill
I like this stretch of neighborhood, especially in the morning hours. On one side of the street there are trees and a branch of the public library; on the other side there's a post office, bookstore, and a smattering of tables beneath an awning. The day isn't too hot yet, people look pleasant and determined, and there are no lines at the post office.

planner
She buys me an 18-month planner. It has a pale green cover with gold butterflies and scrolling leaves.

reroute
On the phone she blocks me out, so I resort to email. For several minutes I type, explaining what it is I feel and why it is I need to be heard, a claim to attention I rarely make; and after checking that the words aren't angry or hurtful, but just too firm to ignore, I send it off instead of saving it as a draft that will never see the light of day.

rustle
The other room hums quietly with the T.V., with her footsteps, drawers opening and sliding shut. The place doesn't feel like a vacant shell.

tar
My fingers on the keys feel coated in it.

Week in Seven Words #78

cascade
I could be a cartoon - a wide-eyed foolish girl in a canoe paddling towards a waterfall. I know it's there, right ahead. I can hear it, I can feel the impending descent in my bones, but I think that if I brace myself in my seat and hold the oar a little tighter I'll glide over the edge gracefully. Maybe the best I can hope for at this point is to make it amusing - the canoe shoots out, hangs in the air; I smile, look down, say "uh oh" in a goofy voice, and plummet. Laughter will help me crawl out of the wreckage later.

eupnea
Stepping out into a cool morning that promises rain, I walk slowly and focus on breathing.

excitable
The yolks sizzle and crisp in the pan. Cheese bubbles, and the salsa spits red and green.

lounging
Stunned by the heat of the afternoon, I sprawl on my bed with a book and read by the light that beats in through the blinds.

metamorphosis
The large owlish sunglasses change her face so much that only the fact that she's staring in my direction and smiling makes me stop walking and take a closer look.

overextend
For everything I do I wonder if I could be doing something better, more worthwhile. I'm so caught up in 'what-ifs' that I get little done.

vitiligo
The remaining roses are a pale brittle pink, as if they have a skin condition.

Worth Watching: Le Dîner de Cons (1998)

Title: Le Dîner de Cons
Director: Francis Veber
Language: French
Rating: PG-13

Synopsis
Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermitte) participates in a weekly dinner where he and his friends bring along the biggest idiots they can find; they do this for amusement and as a competition to see who can invite the crowning idiot of the evening. On the fateful day in which the film is set, Pierre believes he's found a fine specimen of idiocy: François Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a tax-man from the Ministry who in his spare time builds models of architectural wonders out of matchsticks. Pierre, a wealthy publisher, injures his back during golf and is forced to miss out on that evening's 'idiot dinner', but he invites François to his apartment to get to know him better before the next get-together. Thinking that Pierre is interested in publishing a book about his matchstick models, François arrives eager to help him in any way, and so, in a single evening, Pierre's life cheerfully goes to pieces.

Characters
François Pignon is the most likeable character here, not only because he's honest and genuinely willing to help, but because the actor who plays him, Jacques Villeret, has the endearing eyes of a hush puppy and an adorably pudgy face. It's difficult to take your eyes off of Villeret, who gives a brilliant performance as a well-meaning guy who can't think quickly on his feet and keep track of multiple details, though he appreciates mischief and cleverness. I thought his matchstick models were pretty impressive, and François makes an excellent omelet too so he's not without his talents.

For most of the evening François tries to help Pierre track down and win back his wife, Christine (Alexandra Vandernoot), who said that she's leaving him; Pierre, hampered by his bad back, is often limited to looking on in awe and horror as François attempts to set things right. This is Pierre's comeuppance. In some ways you feel bad for him (to have so much go so wrong in so little amount of time) but he brought these disasters on himself through his dishonesty and arrogance. Thierry Lhermitte, in addition to having lovely blue eyes, is a fine actor, the straight man to Villeret's loveable buffoon, and watching them together is a treat.

Two more minor characters are also worth noting. Lucien Cheval (Daniel Prévost) is a zealous tax inspector and diehard soccer fan who gets sucked into, and contributes to, the unfolding miseries in Pierre's apartment. Juste LeBlanc (Francis Huster) is Pierre's estranged friend; François inadvertently reconciles them during the film, and so Juste is at hand for a part of the evening, though even together he and Pierre can't undo what François has wrought. Juste has an infectious wheezy laugh; the situation gets to be too funny for him to handle, and I understand completely - I can't remember the last time I was laughing so hard during a movie that I had to pause it several times.

Relationships
Pierre and François don't become best buddies or anything like that. The movie ends on just the right note.

Memorable sights and sounds
The facial expressions - confusion, naïveté, and innocent glee from François, stunned disbelief from Pierre, and shrewd calculation from the tax inspector, Cheval, who with few important exceptions misses very little.

Stand-out scenes
Any time François Pignon uses a telephone is funny, whether he dials the wrong number, forgets the primary purpose of the call, gets carried away with emotion, chats about irrelevant details, and even when he does finally get it right, screws things up immediately after.

The entire scene with the tax inspector is also brilliant, with different kinds of humor from verbal wit to sight gags, multiple revelations, some plot points memorably resolved and new ones introduced.

Further thoughts
I can't think of another movie where a character says, in all seriousness, "I'm in a bind; I don't have an idiot. I've looked all over... got one on hand?" Pierre is the one who says this; and he doesn't have to look far. Pretty much everyone is an idiot in one way or another.

Week in Seven Words #77

exhaust
Each car streams the heat from its exhaust pipe across my shins.

frangible
Time crumbles away in sweat, sleeplessness, and apathy.

heatwave
The air presses down like an iron, smoothing my clothes flat onto my skin.

kinetic
She makes her day sound exciting, each detail a delight, and something new to learn at every ordinary place she visits.

leadlight
The leaves look like pieces of green stained glass. It's reassuring to see that even when the heat is brutal and they're scorched, they can still endure beautifully.

nitpicky
He argues into his cell phone, loudly and unselfconsciously, about the precise number of tissues he used the night before to blow his nose.

pillbug
There's a little cell inside me, accessed by a hatch, and sometimes I disappear into it, curling up like a pillbug.

Growing in a mosaic garden

From Isaiah Zagar's Magic Gardens in Philadelphia.

Week in Seven Words #76

amphitheater
Watching The King's Speech outdoors by the Delaware River, I'm huddled knees to chest on a flight of stone steps among friends. The screen ripples slightly in the wind, and the waters beyond are a hypnotic royal blue.

bribery
He flops onto the ground and refuses to go further, but with the promise of cookies at the top of the hill he's back on his feet, grudgingly.

diversion
To stave off his fit of fussiness and tears I change his position every so often. I stand him up on the kitchen table, so he has a prime view of the backyard and of his older brother's elaborate monologue on war tactics. Then he sits on the table, his fist clutching my index finger. Next he finds himself on a soft chair, standing again on my lap and bouncing slightly to the rhythm of the William Tell Overture. I wonder what he makes of all these shifts in perspective.

grisaille
On our walk back some blocks are silent and brightly lit. Others rumble with noise and people packed around tables outdoors. The parks are shadowed and secretive. We watch the lights fade out in a church.

hiking
We find spiders, red and orange mushrooms, a bed of ferns splashed with sunshine, and trees that have tipped into the embrace of other trees. There are also slabs of rock over a trickling stream and stones set in a shaky stairwell on the hillside.

scouting
At the bookstore they fan out, searching for chapter books, picture books, bargain books on military history. Their voices drift from different pockets, across shelves, announcing discoveries and asking others to come look at curious finds.

shearing
I'm on the verge of something - I don't know what – but in spite of my fear I'd like to find out.