Inappropriate Content: A Good Weekend

A good weekend. Horseback riding trip on Sunday. I now have enough experience riding horses to know I don't know jack about riding horses, which puts me comfortably above most of the kids that were on the trip. No worries: the horses have dealt with Job Corps kids before, and greeted us with the same air of resignation I'm used to seeing at bowling trips or on charter buses.

It's shocking how pretty Maryland is, so very close to the District. We'd crest a ridge and there'd be no sign of a city on the horizon, nor even much civilization; just endless tree-lined hills, warm despite the frosty early spring wind. Even on the bus on the way back, it was all country roads with trees and even tractors, until suddenly over a ridge pokes the great marble phallus that honors our first president.

Even a mere five-minute walk from center leads you to a beautiful creek like this one. The air is somewhat humid and, at this time of year, nice and crisp. Stand on the old stone bridge, and you can picture Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamiston standing on the then-new stone bridge, discussing their plans to create a city and leave a new nation with a new capitol, and themselves with highly profitable real estate ventures.

I managed to catch The Ten Commandments on cable, which was quite the spectacle. Given it's superficial adeherence to scripture, I can see why many faithful Christians feel that Hollywood has lost it's way and is now a pagan business. But on every substantive level, The Ten Commandments is nothing like The Passion of the Christ, and almost exactly like The Lord of the Rings.

Caught a cable airing of Fight Club as well. I mention this only to say that FX's new “DVD on TV” idea is quite possibly the most inane, imbicilic thing on television in weeks, possibly months. (Not counting, of course, the spectacular freakshow that passes for news.)

Fortunately, I do not often have to resort to the boob tube to amuse myself. I worked through a couple of excellent books last week, I began an internship (which I shall get to presently), and, happily, my friend Candice Gibson spent her spring break in Virginia, with a mutual high school friend, Christinia Gibson. They came into town on Tuesday and Friday for me to show them around the city.

We did the tourist thing, of course; I took a good picture of them in front of the monument and showed them the original shooting model of the USS Enterprise, which is in the gift shop of the National Air & Space Museum. When we saw Skylab, no big deal, but the Enterprise—that, I must get a picture of them in front of. Candice, being a political junky and future president of the United States, was thrilled by a guided tour of the Watergate, where we had our picture taken.

Friday night, a movie with Candice and two other friends, Sean Madden and Justin Smith. I love those days when random friends from different walks of life meet, see a movie, chat, and go their separate ways. So does everyone involved, so much so that they forgave me for getting us all hopelessly lost on the way to the theater. That would never happen in a city I was new to, where I didn't know my way at all. It can only happen in a city I'm almost familiar with, where I'm just certain enough I know where I'm going not to check the street signs.

In any case, I finally tracked down Washington's larger independent movie house, which I hope to become quite familiar with indeed, and we saw a Japanese movie that was horrible.

When I say this movie was horrible, I don't mean it was bad. The movie—Nobody Knows, written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda—was very good, with superb acting, excellent directing, and a superior script. When I say horrible, I mean that if you are planning on visiting an airport, working with children, or just plain feeling good about yourself at any time in the next couple of days, do not see this movie.

You see, some movies have a happy ending. Some have an unhappy ending. With some movies, you even have the sneaking suspicion that the director wants you to feel bad.

Hirokazu Koreeda does not want you to feel bad. He wants you to suffer.

Again, Nobody Knows, by Hirokazu Koreeda. Go see it. Carefully.