I’m not sure that I’m glad we did. It’s not that it is a bad movie, it was very nicely done. Directed by Scott Hicks (”Shine“), and set in South Australia, it is the story of a single father (Clive Owen) suddenly thrust into full-time parenthood after the death of his wife. The scenery is stunning and the acting very good. It is a compelling story and despite a fairly depressing and demoralizing first hour, comes together happily at the end.

I like a happy ending.

But it got my mind working, racing in circles. The conflict in the film is the Clive Owen character’s development from virtual absentee father to single Dad. What made it so poignant for me was watching how badly he screws it up through the first three quarters of the film. He just doesn’t get it and does virtually everything wrong. I cringed at several obviously stupid parenting decisions and shook my head knowingly with the inevitable results.

One of the continual sources of stress for me is I am that Clive Owen Character. That I’m constantly screwing up while  some celestial moviegoer shakes their head knowingly as I get it massively wrong? There is so much more to this fatherhood gig than I ever thought – the daily

On a daily basis, I think I do OK. We get through without much permanent injury. But when I look beyond the day, there are so many big questions, big issues that I just don’t know how to handle – from potty training to driver’s training. And when I think about the big issues, I start to get a little panicked. What’s the right way to teach them to read? Am I pushing them too hard or not hard enough? How do you deal with unacceptable behavior?

And that’s what got me thinking about spanking. Dr. O’C pointed out a recent well-publicized study from the U.S. claiming that children who are spanked may grow up to be happier, more  productive adults. I cringe when I hear this kind of thing on the news, because without even looking much further I just know that it is likely to be bogus.

This one is no exception. The ’study’ was a survey of adults and teens undertaken by Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at a Christian college in Michigan. Not only is it unpublished and has not undergone peer review, but her work has been rejected by two professional journals. Gunnoe’s study is in direct contradiction to previous published studies that have found that spanking may have detrimental effects on behavior and mental development, makes children more aggressive and is associated with a lower IQ in children.

I don’t actually know how I feel about spanking kids. The idea of spanking my own sons makes me a little bit squeamish, but I’m not completely opposed to it in theory. I can see that it could be a quick and effective negative reinforcement for a child who is doing something dangerous. I think the risk, for me, is that it is a slippery slope. If I can justify spanking under extreme circumstances I might turn to it in anger. And if I start hitting my kids in anger, well, that’s a path I don’t want to go down.

I guess that kind of slippery slope is what worries me about the way that this study is being reported - that it may reinforce some negative parenting behavior. Gunnoe is careful to note that her study “is not a green light for parents to spank their children, but rather a red light for those groups who want corporal punishment banned.” But most people do not read beyond the headline. The headline of this particular story is that spanking is actually good for kids. It is easy to imagine that someone who is already heavy handed with their kids might take this to mean that they can carry on with the beatings or even escalate.

As is always the case with this kind of story, I reserve most of my disdain for the media who have picked up on an unpublished study by an obscure psychologist at an obscure religious college and published it as scientific gospel. I’m sure that the legion of toddlers who are getting spanked on the back of your stories will thank you, guys. Well done.

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Another thing I liked about “The Boys Are Back” was the soundtrack. Heavy presence by Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós, but the song that stuck with me was this one from Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble”, available from .

Image credits:

The Boys are Back

Fleurieu Peninsula

The Boys are Back

Still and all, we managed to salvage some fun.

We slayed another redback in the letterbox – using appropriate tools and safety gear, of course.

We walked the dog in the dry spells. Yes, that is my front lawn but I mowed it, I promise.

And baked cookies in the rainy spells.

I think Boy Z is yearning for summer too as he insisted on wearing his board shorts today. Compromises were made.

I’m not going to comment on who’s responsible for this ensemble, but I will point out – that’s not me he’s walking up the stairs with. Speaking of whom – 37 weeks and counting…

…which means there is a 3.6% chance that we’ll end up down the road in the labour ward by day’s end.

And that’s a weekend.

Today was good.
Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
From there to here.
From here to there.
Funny things are everywhere.

Ah, the simple genius of Dr. Seuss…

In the mind of kids books, we saw the preview for “Where the Wild Things Are” a couple of weeks ago before the latest Harry Potter. I have no idea how they’re going to make Maurice Sendak’s wonderful little story book into a feature film, but I was totally sucked in by the Arcade Fire musical accompaniment. I managed to dig up the “Where The Wild Things Are” version of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up”. Just in case I’m not the only Arcade Fire/Maurice Sendak fan around.

I’m pretty sure I am the aging hipster Dad demographic to which this film is being targeted.

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And finally, speaking of music, I’ve got an extra copy of Scottish popsters Cancel the Astronauts’ debut EP “I Am the President of Your Fanclub (and Last Night I Followed You Home)” to give away. Free. It’s a great disc, one that’s been getting a lot of play around these parts of late (have a listen to one of the tracks here if you’re picky about the music you win). If you want a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post. I’ll pick a random commentator sometime in the week.

UPDATE:

The winner of the Cancel the Astronauts EP as selected by random.org is….

Cat of My Name is Cat! Congratulations

But I’m not here to talk about the joys of a couple of hours of peace and quiet in an otherwise chaotic day. I’m here for an “I told you so” moment. Some of you may remember mocking my admittedly questionable fashion decision to purchase matching red Crocs for Boy Z and I*.  Well let me tell you a little story…

Dr. O’C and I went on a rare date night over the weekend to see “Slumdog Millionaire“, which is a fantastic film. It’s rare that Dr. O’C and I both like a film, so you can be assured that anyone would like this one. Check it out if you haven’t already. At any rate, I was wearing my beach shorts, which are a bit shabby and worn down. The pockets no longer reliably do the job for which they were designed and I’m forever losing change and car keys and the like. The film finished and Dr. O’C and I were headed for the car when a couple stopped us and handed me my wallet. They said, “You left this on your seat. We’ve been looking for the guy in the red Crocs.”

I think I’ve made my point. Feel free to post pictures of yourself in your red Crocs with a note regarding both my wisdom and exquisite fashion sense.

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*I’d like to invite the manufacturers of Crocs to go ahead and contact me about a sponsorship deal.

But I’m pretty used to this kind of thing. As an American expatriate this is a common – and in this case, rather innocuous – type of exchange. My co-workers, colleagues, friends and random acquaintances often forget that I’m an American. I endeavor to be, with apologies to Graham Greene, a quiet American. Having made the decision to be a permanent expatriate – a migrant – I try hard to fit in to the culture that I’ve chosen. I don’t fit the caricature of the typical American that most of my colleagues have in their heads, so it’s easy for them to forget my citizenship and to express their true feelings about we Yanks in casual conversation.

A question I often get from my readers when describing these sometimes frustrating encounters is “Is that really what they think of us?” I always try to make people feel better. “No, only some of them. It’s not really that bad”, I soothe. The grim reality is that, in general, people in the countries which I have visited or lived  do not like Americans. There are exceptions – the occasional Americanophile, the folks that have lived in the States or met a number of American expats – but most of the rest of the Western world have quite strong feelings of antipathy toward us. The exchange I described at the beginning of this post is a mild one. The worst are when I’m faced with a strong-willed local and asked to justify American culture – one that I’m not really that happy with myself – or lectured at length about the wrongs perpetrated on the world by the U.S.A.

This is based in large part on our nation’s behavior in the last eight years. George Bush’s sledgehammer-as-diplomacy has alienated many of our allies. But it runs deeper than that. If you read the comments on my last post, a lot of non-Americans recoil at the spread of American culture and consumerism. This new brand of commercial imperialism has been more pervasive than Bush’s military incursions in the Middle East. The rest of the world is angry that there are probably only two or three countries in the world that lack a McDonalds, the fact that American chain stores have moved into Europe and Australia – cutting down local businesses in their wake. People in Perth, Manchester and Galway are disgusted that most of their television and movies now come with an American accent. Folks in Aberdeen and Adelaide are angry that American-style privitization of public services has gotten them more expensive and lower quality services.

Unfortunately it’s not just our political and economic policies. If you asked someone on the streets of York, Darwin or Christchurch what they thought of when they thought of an average American they would use words like fat, obnoxious, close-minded, high-maintenance, and – above all – ignorant. If you asked that same person how many Americans they knew, how many were in their close social circle, they would likely say zero to two. So where does this impression come from? TV, movies and tourists.

You see, we are doing ourselves a disservice. By exporting our crap television and our increasingly derivative movies, we are presenting an image of ourselves to the rest of the world that does not reflect reality. The bilge that we’re spewing into the world – and not just the environmental toxins – are a source of a lot of resentment from the rest of the world. Are Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears typical Americans? What about Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, Keith Olbermann and Ann Coulter? What about George Bush, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin? Are any of these people like you or me? The tourist thing is a tricky one. I find a lot of my fellow Americans annoying when I run across them as tourists. There seems to be something in our psyche (the British are guilty of this as well) that demands that when visiting a foreign country it be as similar to our home as possible. What this means is that we get the reputation, fairly in my experience, of being loud, intractable, demanding and

But enough self-loathing. Here’s the thing, the thing that you (if you’re an American reading this blog) and I already know – we’re getting a bad rap. There are Americans that fit the stereotype – absolutely. I’ve met them. I’ve seen them in the Wal-Mart, yelling across the shop at their kids, waddling through the aisles filled with giant bags of potato chips in “No Spin Zone” or “These Colors Don’t Run” t-shirts, clinging desperately to their jiggling mounds of fat. You see them on the news – the media loves the extremes – you see them parodied in films and on the TV. But stereotypes are a dangerous thing. For example, if you based your opinion of Australians on what you’ve seen on films and TV you may think that Steve Irwin or Mick Dundee or The Sheepherders were typical Aussie blokes. Based on TV and movies, the streets of London would be populated with Mr. Beans, Edwinas and Pattys and Simon Cowells.

And this is what I find frustrating about living abroad – stereotypes. I’ve got as good a sense of humor as anyone, and if I’m talking to someone who has spent time in the States or has American friends, then I’m happy to play around with the stereotypes and throw them right back in their face. We used to have a great time in my lab in Oxford teasing each other about cultural stereotypes. With people from seven or eight different countries (depending on whether you consider Scotland a country) there was ample material to work with. But, when confronted with people that have never set foot in the United States, have never spent time with Americans yet have firm ideas about what we are like and who we are – that’s not in good fun. That is dealing with ignorance and ignorance is something for which I have very little tolerance, regardless of citizenship. I had a friend in Oxford who used to say that when you found something that you didn’t like in another person – “if you spot it, you got it”. In other words, we dislike in others what we dislike in ourselves. I think that this applies to this whole national psyche debate. Australians are getting fatter – blame the Americans pushing McDonalds down their throats. Brits are getting irrevocably into debt – blame the loose American-style credit regulations.

There is an old cliché about familiarity breeding contempt.  I think the converse is true here. Dr. O’C said it well in her comment on the last post – her experience in America gave her greater respect for Americans. My experience in Britain gave me greater respect for the wealth and depth of British culture. Meeting, working with and making friends with normal people from different countries has helped me transcend my personal stereotypes and prejudices about those nationalities. The only way to get past a stereotype or a prejudiced opinion is to get to know the people about whom you’ve formed a false opinion. That being the case, I’m like a frickin’ cultural ambassador for the U.S.A. – traveling the world showing just how mild-mannered, thoughtful, intelligent and modest Americans really are. I think that the State Department should consider giving me a stipend for spreading the truth about Americans – that we’re not all that different than anyone else – no better and certainly no worse.

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Image credits:

Typical American

Typical Aussie

Typical Brit

Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” is available from .

Jarvis Cocker is one of my rock gods. I selected my last pair of glasses almost entirely because I wanted specs like Jarvis. Really. Like the Barenaked Ladies, Pulp brings me right back to the early days of my relationship with (stalking of) Dr. O’C. She turned me on to the Brit Pop pioneers, among other great bands I hadn’t heard. “Common People” has got to be one of their best and one of the best of the genre.

Almost as cool as Jarvis is Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. If Star Trek isn’t enough for you, how about his bizarre foray into pop music with another four-eyed rock god, Ben Folds. Agnes, here’s another cover for you – Big Giant Head does Pulp.

Ben Folds is apparently collaborating on a new album with author Nick Hornby who wrote “About A Boy”. The film adaptation of his book starred Hugh Grant in the role of man-child Will.

Hugh Grant also starred as the rakish Daniel Cleaver in “Bridget Jones’ Diary”, a secret guilty pleasure. (”Bizarre what some men find attractive.”). His co-star in that film was Colin Firth.

Colin Firth played Harry Bright, a British banker, in “Mamma Mia”. And speaking of bankers…

The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Chasing shadows moonlight mystery.
Headed for the overload,
Splattered on the dirty road,
Kick me like you’ve kicked before,
I can’t even feel the pain no more…

My first memory of The Rolling Stones is one of profound dislike. I’m not saying that I was some sort of music snob child progeny, but the Stones songs that I heard on Top 40 radio and saw on MTV in the early 80’s just flat out sucked. Cap their sub-par 80’s work off with the absurd duet that Jagger did with Bowie in 1985 that MTV played the hell out of and I think my impression of the Stones as overrated and lacking in any real talent was a legitimate, if short-sighted, one. This was a band for graying, beer-bellied bikers with the tongue emblems on the leathers that periodically roared through my dank north Florida town on the way to Daytona, not for the discerning young Culture Club fan. (Yes, really. Regrettably.)

The source for this distaste was that I had very little exposure to the Stones’ earlier work. The only “oldies” that I listened to was the old records and 8 tracks that my Dad had and he preferred McCartney and Lennon to Jagger and Richards. Certainly I would have heard “Satisfaction” and “Gimme Shelter” on the radio, but they never resonated with me growing up – they just didn’t apply to my small town childhood.  And then you see Mick Jagger “dancing” in the streets in a bright mauve silk shirt on MTV and it’s pretty easy to dismiss The Stones as irrelevant.

My opinion about The Stones started to change the first time that I saw Lawrence Kasden’s “The Big Chill”, or more precisely, listened to the soundtrack for that film. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is used so effectively in the funeral scene of that film (yes, that’s the kind of teenager I was) that I was inspired to go and check out more of The Stones’ earlier work. I bought the double cassette “Hot Rocks” and never thought of The Rolling Stones in the same way again. I can still remember the feeling that “Satisfaction” inspired the first time I really heard it in my late teens. That raw frustration, rebellion, absolute disdain for “that man”. The Stones were punk before punk was even an idea in Joey Ramone’s teenage mind. That rock and roll swagger of Honky Tonky Women” and “Street Fighting Man” that seemed cliched to me in the early 80s got me through the bulk of my 20s. From that greatest hits collection, I dug into Jagger ad Richards’ back catalog and some of the the obsessive, darker, introspective stuff from those late 60s and early 70s records hit home for me in my early 30’s.

‘Cause all you women is low down gamblers,
Cheatin’ like I don’t know how,
But baby, baby, there’s fever in the funk house now.
This low down bitchin’ got my poor feet a itchin’,
You know you know the duece is still wild.

Now, “Let It Bleed” is my favorite Stones album, but it’s not the one that the iPod chose on my Friday free day with Boy Z. Instead we got what is generally considered to be their best record, “Exile on Main Street”. This behemoth, upon its release in 1972, changed The Stones from just another 60’s rock band to THE rock band of the 1970s.  changed rock and roll on its release in 1972. So much so that whenever a band crosses some sort of critically established threshold, this is the album evoked as a comparison. For example, “‘Being There’ is Wilco’s ‘Exile on Main Street’” or “With ‘Brighter Than Creation’s Dark’, the Drive-by Truckers have recorded their ‘Exile on Main Street’”.

And it is a magnificent album. It’s a rollicking, seemingly endless trip – like a drunken summer afternoon riding around in the back of a pick up truck. It’s hot, it’s dirty, it’s fuddled. The boogie piano and mellow slide show this band at it finest – borrowing elements of country, soul, rhythm and blues, even jazz – to make a new kind of rock and roll.

Listening to “Exile on Main Street” with my son on Friday, listening through his virgin ears, I heard a song like “Hip Shake Boogie” for what it must have been at the time – a redefining of rock and roll. The subject matter of the song…

…I wanna tell you ’bout a dance
that’s goin’ around…

…is bog standard rock, is in fact how rock and roll started out a couple of decades earlier. But the way that The Stones come at it would have been all new at the time, the dirty boogie sound that they were employing and Jagger’s grumbling, lackadaisical vocals.

Z was indifferent to the music, but did like my singing and hip shaking. He’s more of a fan of dance than music right now. I’m a little disappointed that hes’s not up shaking his own hips yet. Particularly since Chris’s daughter, who is younger than Z, is all over the interwebs with her dancing. But hey, it’s not a race, right?

Right?

I do think that The Rolling Stone have held on for far too long. I also think that they’re the McDonalds of rock and roll, a universally recognized franchise with that damn tongue logo ubiquitous. And I think that they haven’t made a really good album since “Goat’s Head Soup” in 1973 (maybe 1980’s “Emotional Rescue”). But all that aside, the Rolling Stones changed rock and roll for the better in the late 60’s and early 70’s and some of those albums -  “Let It Bleed”, “Sticky Fingers”, “Their Satanic Majesties Request” and “Exile on Main Street” – are among the finest ever made.

Z, most likely, is never going to see the depressing spectacle is The Rolling Stones today and I’m a little envious of that. He’ll be able to pick and choose from their back catalog, ignoring “Dancing in the Street” and “One Hit To The Body“. Hell, Z may even think of The Rolling Stones as they would like to people to think of them – as the greatest rock band the world has ever seen.

Let this music relax your mind, let this music relax your mind.
Stand up and be counted, can’t get a witness.
Sometimes you need somebody, if you have somebody to love.
Sometimes you ain’t got nobody and you want somebody to love.

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The Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” is available from Amazon.

Annie Savoy: What do you believe in, then?
Crash Davis: Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. Goodnight.

I had intended to start yesterday’s post with a  kind of statement of things I believe strongly in, the point being that I did not want to argue about the merits of evolution again. A sort of personal manifesto. The post was getting fairly unwieldy, though, so I killed it.

But I’ve been coming back to the list since then and I actually like it a lot. NPR listeners may be familiar with one of my favorite of their programs, “This I Believe”, on which average people read an essay about their core beliefs. One of these days I’m going to write a proper “This I Believe” essay. But until then and with apologies to Edward R Murrow, Michael Stipe and Crash Davis, here is what I believe.

1. I believe in Karma, The Golden Rule, reaping what you sow, however you label it. You get back what you give out.
2. I believe that a civilized society has an obligation to look after its poor, its weak, its sick. I believe that, unfortunately, government is the only entity that is imparial enough to be capable of doing so.
3. I believe that through some bizarre twist of fate I’ve ended up with the most wonderful woman on the planet as a life partner and the mother of my child.
4. I believe that we can explain the incredible diversity of life on this planet without invoking the supernatural. I believe in Muller’s Ratchet, Mendel’s Laws, Occam’s Razor and Darwinian Evolution.
5. I believe that I am as happy as I make up my mind to be.
6. I believe that my son is as close to a perfect expression of humanity as you’re likely to find.
7. I believe that a world without music would be a world in which I would rather not live.
8. I believe in a personal god of my own understanding.
9. I believe that every person has a fundamental right to choose their own path in life. To make their own choices about their bodies, about where, how and if they worship, about what they read and say, about what they do behind the four walls of their home. I believe that their right to choose their own destiny stops when their fist hits my face.
10. I believe that it’s getting better all the time. A little better all the time.

And…

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there’s the key…

I believe my humor’s wearing thin
And change is what I believe in
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in…

I believe in example
I believe my throat hurts…

What do you believe?

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R.E.M.’s “Life’s Rich Pageant” is available from .

(From “Lost In Translation“)

The last time we were in Sweden, Dr. O’C’s sister looked after Baby Z for a night so we could get a much needed night out together. It was such a relief – a few baby free hours – that we thought we would try to replicate that experience this time around. We planned to go see the Oscar winning “Once” at one of the city center cinemas.

Well, I’m slightly chagrined to say that my normally flawless sense of direction failed me and we got slightly turned around in the streets of Göteborg. So much so that we couldn’t quite find the cinema. Dr. O’C suggested asking directions, obviously not realizing how laughable a concept this is to any man worth his salt. Our luck seemed to change for the better, however, as we found a second cinema that was showing “Flyga Drake” – the Swedish title for “The Kite Runner“. Both Dr. O’C and I had really enjoyed the Khaled Hosseini book and probably would have gone to see the film earlier if not for, well, you know. We rushed to buy the tickets and almost as an afterthought I asked the clerk:

“It is in English?”

To which she replied:

“Yes, yes, English.”

Dr. O’C astutely pointed out that all of the films for adults in Sweden are in English with Swedish subtitles. Except, apparently, for those that are in Dari Persian, with Swedish subtitles.

I wonder what our fellow cinema goers thought as we slunk out of the theater ten minutes into the film.

Image: I’ve no idea what this statue in the center of Göteborg represents nor what that man is doing with that knife, as I don’t read Swedish. But I love the vandalism/artistic statement.

When I started looking about for more information about the ad I found that it had been directed by David Lynch. With films like “Dune”, “Blue Velvet”, “Wild at Heart” and the unfortunately short-lived TV series “Twin Peaks” Lynch. His films featured driving and ultraviolent story-lines, sharp dialogue and were both visually and sonically stunning. Lynch was the king of alternative film in the 80’s and into the early 90’s. But then came “Lost Highway” and “Mullholland Drive” – two films that were still visually stunning, but were just cryptically dull. Lynch seemed to be losing his narrative touch and officially became a director non grata for me when he did “The Straight Story” for Disney, which features nearly two hours of an old man riding a lawn tractor. I shit you not. I have kind of lost track of his career since then and don’t know if it has gotten so bad for Lynch that the only work he can find is in commercials. I suspect, however, that it is some kind of badge of honor to do a high fashion ad – like Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman’s Chanel ad last year.

The good news for Gucci is that this ad worked. When I was thinking about gifts for Dr. O’C’s first Mother’s Day this damned ad was lodged firmly in my head. Just like the little media-powered robot that advertising agents would like me to be I toddled down to Boots large drugstore chain and bought the new Gucci fragrance. Even as I was paying for the perfume I found myself flummoxed by my submission to the corporate will.

Things end well if you believe that we’re often unwilling victims to corporate manipulation. The bad news for Gucci is that Dr. O’C was apparently not as enchanted as I by their ad. I need to put this gently, because she has so many truly lovable qualities (and reads this blog regularly). Let’s say that she can, on occasion, be a difficult person for whom to buy gifts (and one who’s going to be peeved to have this part of her personality revealed on the interwebs). Sorry, fashion giant, but you get an A for effort.

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“The Best of Blondie” is available from and Amazon. Gucci’s damn fragrance is available at fine retailers everywhere.

Here’s the ad via YouTube:

This was our first trip with Z and it was fantastic to watch him starting to interact with his cousins (most of it pleasant despite some of the pictures in the slide show above) and to meet his uncle, with whom Z seemed completely enamored. We got the chance to do a lot more child-friendly touristing – ice skating in Frölunda, a wander around the grounds of Gunnebo Slott and swimming (and water sliding) in Mölndal. Z got to participate in more of the activities than you might think, though I’m still slightly hurt that his mother didn’t trust my skating skills enough to let me take him on a spin round the rink.

We jumped on the offer of babysitting from Z’s aunt and high-tailed it into town for our first “date” since last September. We went to see “Juno” at a wonderful old city-center cinema in Goteborg and had coffee and cakes afterwards. The film was great, and even though it’s a teen rom com, is entertaining enough for the old folks as well. It was subtitled in Swedish which made for interesting audience surveillance- I think that a lot of the punchlines were just lost in translation. How do you subtitle this, for example:

“Yea, you just take Soupy-Sales to prom I can think of so many cooler things to do that night. Like, you know what Bleek? I might pumice my feet, uh, I might go to Bren’s Unitarian Church, maybe get hit by a truck full of hot garbage juice, you know? Cause all those things, would be exponentially cooler than going to prom with you.”

I had heard two things about Juno coming in – it had a great soundtrack and a questionable message. The first is absolutely true – one of the best movie soundtracks since “Rushmore“. It features an outstanding singer-songwriter that I had not heard of in Kimya Dawson and classic tracks from Belle and Sebastien, Mott the Hoople, Sonic Youth, Buddy Holly and others. For this guy, a good soundtrack goes a long way toward my enjoyment of a film.

As far as the second preconception, I had heard that the film was strongly anti-abortion and kind of flippant about teen pregnancy. I don’t know about these criticisms. I tend not to look to teen comedies for my life lessons, but maybe some folks do. It is not the anti-abortion diatribe that some on the left and right have been bemoaning and celebrating. I don’t have the experience to know if teenage pregnancy is like a Belle & Sebastien song, but I reckon they might be glossing things over a bit. I just wanted to go out (without baby in tow) and have a laugh with my love and “Juno” was a great opportunity for that. Political and social commentary aside, it’s good fun and even though I could relate the most with Jason Bateman’s shady character, I came away from the cinema with a smile on my face.

It would make more sense to attach a song from “Juno” to this post, but I’m not in the mood for making sense (check this post out for one of the Belle & Sebastien tracks from the film). Instead, to finish out a week of Scandanavian music here’s one of my favorite Swedish bands Peter, Bjorn and John doing “Objects of My Affection”. Their 2006 LP “Writer’s Block” is available from Amazon, and eMusic.
“And the other day, this new friend of mine
Said something to me
‘Just because something starts differently,
Doesn´t mean it´s worth less.’
And i soaked it in, how i soaked it in,
How i soaked it in…”