celebrity email.

STOP THE PRESSES!

i don’t care about the time harrison ford gave me a dirty look as i was walking to work, or the time julianne moore gave me a dirty look as she was unloading her car, or the time brenda’s crazy brother from six feet under gave me a dirty look when i was on my lunch break, or when pete seeger gave me a really, really dirty look at a buffet table… yeah, i don’t know what that’s about… there are three, wait, no, four celebrity encounters i care about; three because they’re idols and one because it was really, really silly.

1. when i talked to philip glass on his stoop and he told me that since i lived in chinatown i should go to the markets there and buy fresh vegetables and cook them in my dorm, and i was so starstruck i could hardly speak and then i walked through washington square park looking for people i know so i could tell them i met philip glass and when i told my friend dan he went, “wait, are you walking through the park looking for people you know so you can tell them you met philip glass?”

2. when i stood across from former poet laureate robert pinsky at a buffet (yeah, most of these somehow involve food, often a buffet) and we had the following conversation:

rp: what do you suppose these are?

me: i think those are portabello mushrooms.

rp: i think the best thing to do would be to take a little of everything. and then you can decide what you like best and come back for more.

me: that sounds like a good idea.

3. a couple weeks ago, when i met jonathan goldstein, and when i told him i’d written a short story inspired by his book, his facial expression seemed better suited as a reaction to something like “we’re going to have to amputate,” but what he said was, “that’s really nice to hear,” so i chose to remember that part.

4. and now, this, which happened today. some background: jens lekman, whom you should be concerned with because this is a clip of him at a concert where i was actually in attendance, with his opening act, a twelve-piece barbershop group

is coming to seattle in june, and i’m going to see him, the first person i’ve ever seen in concert twice (i know), so i was gettin’ ampred and tooling around his website and found this:

Topic for the month of April: The Cold War

This will be the compulsory main subject of your e-mail. If you write to me it will have to be about this. If you wanna talk about something else you will have to make associations, find reference points.

Last months topic was a great success, it made our communication rise to a whole new level.

so, being the diligent nerd that i am, i promptly responded:

Dear Jens,

You’re wonderful and I’m your biggest fan and all that, but to the point: the Cold War. I was a movie reviewer in New York for a little while and I wrote a review of a documentary about the launch of Sputnik and its effects on the Cold War. Cool, huh? It’s here: http://www.nypress.com/article-18047-the-russians-were-coming.html

And here:

The Russians Were Coming

Comprehensive and well-researched, Sputnik Mania informs but doesn’t entertain

Sputnik Mania
Directed by David Hoffman
at IFC Center

In recent years, the documentary genre has been taken down from its musty shelf in the public television library, dusted off and given a makeover. Michael Moore has emerged as an unlikely rock star of the American left; Morgan Spurlock, the Evel Knievel of documentarians, combined the voyeuristic appeal of reality television with old-fashioned muckraking in Super Size Me; then others have found success using children as their subjects, shaking loose the grown-up stuffiness of the genre. Plus, directors have tapped into the American love of quirk, producing documentaries on subjects like crossword puzzles, wheelchair rugby, a love story about a man who throws acid in his girlfriend’s face and a Donkey Kong competition. Compared to these, the Ken Burns model seems doomed to be forever relegated to classrooms and museums. David Hoffman’s documentary Sputnik Mania, about the launch of the Sputnik satellite and its influence on the Cold War, is a return to tradition.

Based on Paul Dickson’s book Sputnik: Shock of the Century, Sputnik Mania is composed of equal parts voiceover narration (by a magisterial Liev Schreiber), archival footage and present-day interviews. Like most documentaries, it circumnavigates its subject, examining it from every possible angle: public fear of a Communist investigation and the exploitation of that fear by the media; the story of Laika, the first dog sent into space; “rocket fever” among American teenagers; and the foundation of NASA.

What Hoffman doesn’t do, although he may have intended it, is draw a parallel between his story and the current political climate. Fear mongering is certainly something we’ve become familiar with in recent years, but any further conclusions on the subject are left entirely up to us.

The absence of a modern message makes Sputnik Mania feel somewhat incomplete, like a textbook lesson without a compelling message. But how much of that expectation comes from the flamboyant documentaries we’ve become accustomed to in recent years, which are often tragically flawed in their inability to rein in enthusiasm for their subjects? Sputnik Mania is not riveting; but it is, first and last, informative. It’s the BBC World News to Morgan Spurlock’s Daily Show; and as any well-rounded student of current events can attest, the ideal is to have a little of both.

…So there you have it! I’m coming to see you in Seattle in June. I have curly hair and glasses; come find me and we can talk Soviet aeronautics.

Yours,

Raphaela

and today, lo and behold, look what showed up in the ol’ inbox:

awesome !

thanks raphaela.

see you in seattle.

jens

boo-yah.