"I have come to regard November as the older, harder man's October. I appreciate the early darkness and cooler temperatures. It puts my mind in a different place than October. It is a month for a quieter, slightly more subdued celebration of summer's death as winter tightens its grip."
- Henry Rollins
As I write this, it is snowing, the calm, gentle snow that happens in Central Oregon. There’s no storm, no wind. Just a gentle, quiet, sprinkle of snow that makes everything beautiful.
This quote by Henry Rollins captures so well my feelings of November. You can’t just walk outside without thinking about it; no, November requires that you are aware of the world and how to address it. Autumn settles into itself in November. No more warm days. Even the beautiful sunny days are crisp and require at least a jacket and a watchful eye on the weather app. Days are short here in the Northwest. For the next couple of months, it is dark in the five o’clock hour. Home and hearth go from being summer’s launchpad of adventure to becoming your Thomas Kinkade autumn’s cottage, with glowing amber lights and wisps of smoke from the chimney, nestled into the cold and clear shimmering evening landscape. I am blessed to live in a place where this is a reality.
This middle of November, we can take a moment to enjoy just being. Politics and summer’s need to do are behind us, and the heart of the "holiday season” is ahead of us. Don’t be in a hurry - there’s really no need. Breathe. And instead of meditating for an hour, meditate for the week. This is the perfect time to be in a zen state. Why not do it? That’s my plan.
I. Film: Surf’s Up
Speaking of zen, I recently rewatched ”Surf’s Up,” the Sony animated movie from 2006. It is an almost perfect movie. My son was a toddler when this movie was released, and I watched it a lot back then. Rewatching it, I forgot how truly great this movie is.
One of the benefits of having a child is the license it gives you to be completely guiltless of watching so-called “children’s movies.” There are some gems in this space, such as “Wall-E” and “Up!” and the Studio Ghibli movies. I am certainly not the first to say this. “Surf’s Up!” is the best of the Sony Animation movies, and is easily in my top 10 animated films.
It’s the story of a kid (voiced by Shia LeBoeuf) who lives for surfing, and thinks he’s an amazing surfer. And yet he sucks at surfing. Because of his blissful youthful ignorance, he is aching to go to the surfing championships on “Pen-gu Island.” Did I mention this movie is about penguins who surf? Yes it is - which the notable exception of Chicken Joe, who surfs Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
The kid’s name is Cody Maverick. He lives in Shiverpool in Antarctica. His surfboards are chunks of ice. His hero is legendary big-wave surfer “Big Z,” who died ten years earlier. He has an older brother who relentlessly teases him. He is being raised by a single mother. No one understands his love of surfing. His brother is upset Cody is “shirking his responsibilities.” Cody’s mom loves him but is detached and clueless about how important surfing is to Cody. Cody has a perfect teenager attitude. His relationship with his mom is heartbreaking: he begs her to watch him try out for the surfing competition and his eagerness to please her floods from the screen… but she is too busy washing dishes. He absorbs his disappointment. Later in an interview he says “at least mom cares. Kinda.” It doesn’t take long before you are no longer watching penguins. You are watching humanity.
Cody finds a way to get to the competition, where he wipes out spectacularly and on national television. He almost dies. The lifeguard who saved him (played by Zooey Deschanel) takes him to her recluse uncle for recovery. Her recluse uncle turns out to be “Big Z” (played by Jeff Bridges), who became burned out from ruthless competition in a sport he once loved, and who therefore faked his death and disappeared.
What follows is a great story of the relationship between mentor and mentee. The mentee both idolizes and is exasperated by the mentor. The mentor rekindles his love for life.
One of my good friends and mentors once told me, “don’t worry, Mark, I was once young and stupid too.” It was what I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it. This movie beautifully shows that kind of relationship.
The cinematography and animation is phenomenal even 15 years later. The filmmakers loved surf, loved the water. The movie is beautiful.
The methods Sony used to capture the live camera animation is astounding. The movie is set up as a documentary, with the documentarians interviewing characters and a cameraperson using a handheld camera. Sony set up a room with a live cameraperson holding a camera and being virtually in the movie. The camera captured the portion of the animation the cameraperson was shooting. In other words, Sony built a virtual camera to shoot a virtual world, with a live cameraperson carrying the camera. The result is realistic and surprising, with camera shake and shots even the director hadn’t anticipated.
There’s more, but I will let you discover it. Watch the movie.
II. Alan Moore, on bad writing
I am not into graphic novels, but I am thinking I need to rethink that. I ran across this video somehow, somewhere, the way one does. Alan Moore is one of the pioneers of the graphic novel, moving the genre from pulp comic books to serious literature.
In this interview, he discusses the value of reading bad writing. He is absolutely right.
I used to be extremely shy, and the idea of speaking in public terrified me. In grade school teachers had us give book reports and research presentations in front of the class, and I hated it. I dreaded the assignments, I dreaded standing in front of people with all eyes on me, and I got physically ill in anticipation of doing them. When I was done with one, there was no relief. I felt awful because I thought I did badly. I can’t express how awful it was and doing these public presentations was a large reason I hated school as a child.
Giving talks and delivering presentations are no longer much of an issue to me. Why the hell is that?
One of the huge contributing factors was watching lousy presenters who nonetheless were captains of their industries. I am a business consultant who has worked with the best in the business and seen many presentations by people who know how… and people who are just bad. I have seen billionaires present who made me think, “this guy is awful. I can do that!” I have seen leaders in my own industry fall apart on stage during their presentations, and yet I knew these people were leading teams of hundreds of people, and were pulling down a lot of money.
Hell, I can do that.
I also watched the audience when these disasters hit. The audiences in virtually all cases were rooting for the speaker. They really wanted to hear what the speaker was saying, and many times they either didn’t notice or did not care that the speaker was awful. This gave me hope. And I finally just got over it.
Writing too. I swear, if you ever want to be scared away from writing. read Dickens or E. B. White. They are so good there is no way I will ever be at that level. So why even try?
But: Read a bestseller. Read a common novel or story. Read bad, but published, works. Hell, I can do that. So can anyone. And that is encouraging and positive to me.
Please let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
Breathe, and enjoy life. Carpe diem.