Looking to God

My Room

Posted on August 30, 2013August 22, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Growing up I spent a lot of time in my room. Not because my parents punished me or anything. I just liked the time alone to do stuff I enjoyed doing without interference from the outside world. In some ways, I still do that whenever I withdraw from everyone to write my zombie tales of madness and survival. Let me give you a quick peek into my formative years for Freedom Friday, this way you’ll know where I’m coming from whenever I insert a reference of some obscure book, movie or music into my insane writings.

I value my time alone. How’s that for an attention-getting statement? Life moves fast. If I don’t slow down, I’ll end up wishing I had spent more time smelling the roses. I know it’s a cliché, but it works in this case—the smelling of the roses bit, that is.

As a boy, growing up in an active Italian family, I didn’t have time to think about the future. I was having too much fun enjoying the present running around with all my cousins. Not a weekend went by that we weren’t doing something with my relatives, whether it was cooking a BBQ, eating a gigantic meal or stuffing ourselves with oversized sandwiches.

Given my parents had four siblings apiece, it’s debatable since I don’t have my mom’s full history, our get-togethers were massive feasts of food and fun. My dad had recorded some of those events on one of those Super 8 cameras he had purchased. Back then, video did not come from a phone you concealed in your pocket, but from a clunky, old brick you held in your hand. Every so often I’d watch them wondering whatever happened to everybody.

When I reached the age of self-awareness, a teenager (a.k.a. the age of reason), I’d spent a good chunk of my time in my room. I don’t know why. I mean, I had friends and all, and my parents had friends, but I felt as though I needed time to understand who I was.

I learned I enjoyed playing chess. I remember having bought a portable electronic chess game that would play me on different levels, including grandmaster. I can’t say how many hours I’d dedicated to the game, by now most of that is lost in my memory. Yet, because of the time I’d poured into it, my team in grade school went on to win second place in the Ontario Regional Chess Tournament for that year.

About a year later, my interests had changed and my mind had focused more on music than anything else. I learned how to play the guitar. I guess I was pretty good ‘cause I played gigs with a few bands and had my own band by the end of high school.

How can I ever forget those summer nights when I knew my neighbors had gone to some party, and I’d be in my room, cranking out the tunes on my Gibson imitation. My poor parents. They put up so much with me, it’s a wonder they hadn’t disowned me by the time I had completed puberty.

In all this, I discovered Shakespeare. My first exposure to the behemoth playwright was in the ninth grade English class where we began studying The Merchant of Venice. At the time, I couldn’t get my head around a man possessed with the thought of collecting a pound of flesh for a debt owed. It became an obsession with me to want to find out what it all meant.

A pound of flesh? From where? The arm? The thigh? The buttocks? And when Shylock gets his pound of flesh, what will he do with it? Will he use it to heat his home? Will it be a mantelpiece for use in conversations? Or…will he reduce himself to zombie status and eat it?

From there I went on to devour Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the intense, once-a-year-read Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet. Oh, how I fell in love with the notion of lovers wanting to sacrifice their lives for each other. It haunted my nights. It made my days nightmares. I had obsessed over the book. I read, reread, and reread the text, going to the library searching for commentaries to hear what the experts had to say. I wondered how a story so simple could make me feel so insignificant. I contemplated on those last moments when Juliet held the dagger in her hand, waiting to thrust it deep within her bowels so she could be with her lover once again, Romeo.

“O happy dagger. This is thy sheath.”

During my formative years, my room became my sanctuary.

Do you have memories of wanting to spend time in your room? What did you do? Did you learn anything?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Salt

Posted on August 28, 2013August 23, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Imagine someone close to you accuses you of betrayal. What would your reaction be? Disbelief? Shock? Anger? Or would you dismiss it as another play from someone willing to do anything to get to you? The options are endless. How about the source? Where did the accuser get their information? How reliable is it? Does the source have a history of exaggerating facts with wild suggestions and ideas? Has the source proven unreliable in the past? The motive can be anything. What if the conspiracy is so farfetched that it would be difficult for anyone not to believe the accuser? Salt is this week’s highlight for Women Who Wow Wednesday.

Initially securing Tom Cruise as Edwin Salt, an undercover operative, the film’s writers had to rework the script after Cruise had abandoned the project and Angelina Jolie stepped in to fill his shoes. The first order of business was the name change from Edwin Salt to Evelyn Salt.

Not wanting to give away any plot points or even discuss anything about Evelyn Salt’s covert predicament since it would suggest some form of spoiler, I’m going to concentrate only on one particular event in the film—the interrogation scene and everything leading up to it.

In a dank prison in North Korea, Evelyn Salt undergoes extensive questioning. Let’s not kid ourselves—she’s tortured. The North Koreas accuse her of being an American spy. They have evidence she’s working for the CIA. She denies it. They don’t believe her. They drag her from her cell wearing just her bra and panties. They restrain her and ask again if she’s working for the CIA. She again denies it. They hold open her mouth, stick a tube down her throat and pour into it a nasty liquid. It’s not certain if it’s oil or gasoline.

She chokes, denies ever working for anyone, and begs for mercy. Her spine-chilling screams echo throughout the prison. But she doesn’t give them anything. Again, they torture her in an attempt to compel her to talk. And again, she gives them nothing.

It isn’t until her boyfriend kicks up a fuss with the American Embassy, sending letters to Congress, and igniting a political firestorm that her tormentors release her into the hands of the CIA. Battered and bruised, she falls under the comforting arm of her boss and wonders aloud why they released her—she should be dead. Her boyfriend loves her so, and because of that love and political pull, she again saw the light of day.

Two years later a Russian defector surrenders to the CIA and Salt is brought in to interrogate him. Naturally, the CIA tactics contrast those of the North Koreans in that Salt calmly sits on one side of a table in a cold, yet highly watched room, while the defector sits on the other.

He has something to tell her. Something very important. Something that will change her life forever. But how credible is he? Can she trust him? Where did he get his information? Who is his source?

And this is why I love the character Evelyn Salt. In her time of uncertainty, her vulnerabilities are her greatest strengths. Her intuition is her best defense. She withstood torture, degradation, and even cheated death, but never gave up in her time of almost-permanent defeat. As shocking as her agony was, her victory came with her silence protecting the government with whom they had accused her of conspiring.

Author’s note—There, I hope I didn’t reveal too much. Those were the first ten to fifteen minutes of the film. Yeah, no kidding. Trust me when I say, Salt is one of the most interesting characters I’ve had the opportunity to research. I may write a Part II to this post one day. We’ll see, though.

If you’ve seen Salt, have you ever felt like you needed to watch the movie again? What did you like about Angelina’s portrayal of the protagonist?

Monday Mayhem

The Walking Dead: Lessons Learned

Posted on August 26, 2013August 26, 2013 by Jack Flacco

From the very first day when The Walking Dead premiered on AMC, I fell in love with the show. It brought together two main themes I enjoyed reading about yet seldom saw on the small screen. First, zombies. How can anyone not like these beasts of the undead? They’re virtual Tamagotchi. Second, a dystopian future. Who can say tomorrow will be all unicorns and rainbows? I can’t. That’s why for Monday Mayhem I’d like to explore the lessons I’ve learned from watching The Walking Dead.

I have friends of mine who wonder what could possibly attract so many viewers every week to a show about monsters eating the insides of a person’s head. The whole premise is silly. So, I usually ask:

Here is my first lesson. The Walking Dead is not about zombies. Surprised? For you fans who just started watching the show, it’s about people who are stuck in an incredible situation and don’t know what to do next. Every facet of society they once enjoyed no longer exists. They’ve lost everything. Whatever they believed prior to the apocalypse is gone. Even rudimentary things we currently take for granted like running water, clean undergarments, electricity, bread, ice, a comfortable place to sleep, a safe place to live, movies, theaters, concerts, restaurants, ball games, museums, the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of beautiful music have disappeared. Gone. Never to return.

Yet in that misery, lies hope—my second lesson. The survivors of the dreaded destruction of humanity hold on to that single shred of light. That if things should not return to the way it was, they would cling to the anticipation that one day they will once again enjoy their lives in peace and understanding.

Unfortunately, my third lesson tells of an otherwise different tale. In the midst of hope comes betrayal. Loyalty means nothing to the survivors. If two should leave for supplies and one comes back, the crowd should question who is next. If anyone shows any signs of a change, no matter how subtle, they will die. Either by that which renders them a walker or by the hands of their closest friends. They will die. It’s a certainty. No one is safe. No one will escape. Should there be an argument between survivors and the group exiles a member, that member will die. The sad reality is that friendships are of no importance in a future where society has collapsed from its fundamental moral pillars.

For in those days, there will be no friends. Only those to take advantage of.

The final lesson? As brutal and as honest as The Walking Dead is, it’s all fiction. We don’t know what the future holds. You know why? Right. Because it hasn’t happened yet. We’re in yesterday’s future. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Should we worry about what might not happen? No. But we should prepare. You can peruse the list that I had grabbed from the CDC site featured in my Zombie Emergency Kit post. That’ll tell you what to do in case the zombies come after you.

In the meantime, The Walking Dead will start a whole new season in October. I really hope everyone’s just as excited about the event as I am. It promises to be a game changer. I can’t wait.

If anything, what have you learned from the show The Walking Dead? Would you recommend it to your friends?

Food Favorites, Freedom Friday

Salads

Posted on August 23, 2013May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Summer’s almost over. I know, I know. Where are the fanfares to send the kids back to school? All joking aside though, what I’ll miss the most from the hottest season of the year are the salads. Some may say BBQ, which is cool and all, but for me, a fresh salad with assorted ingredients makes my summer. I’m going to give you a few quick tips about salad preparation for Freedom Friday, and I hope your next experience with the delectable greenery is a delicious one!

Our feta, onions, cucumber salad, Apr. 2013.

Living in one of the most agriculturally diverse provinces in Canada, Ontario, our backyard has gone through various transformations throughout the years. When I say our backyard, I mean Casa Flacco’s backyard, as in, behind-our-house backyard. This year, we have made the most ambitious attempt at farming yet. In past years, we’ve had a small strip of land by the side of a fence dedicated to vegetables and salads. This year we’ve increased the size of the original and added two more sections, each section separated by green space.

I don’t know what it is with our backyard. Somehow, whatever we plant turns into these gianormous jungles we attempt to tame but bless us with a bounty of crops we never had intentions of growing.

That’s how it starts. Next thing you know, near the middle of the season, our salads look like leaves from the Cretaceous Period. Our tomatoes look like pumpkins that need trucks to transport. And our zucchinis like, well, I’m not sure. Take a look at the photo.

Zucchini plant in our garden, Aug. 2009.

Seriously, sometimes I feel as if our yard has radioactive soil. If you ever hear reports of a man climbing buildings in Toronto and spinning webs, you’ll know what happened to me. Anyway, talk about getting caught up in the moment, let’s get back to the point of this post—salads.

We grow radicchio and the regular garden-variety salad. The radicchio is my favorite because it’s easy to prepare and mouth-watering on its own.

Here’s what we do:

Radicchio is a naturally bitter salad. The salt accentuates the flavor along with the olive oil. Fresh from the garden is something special to savor in the summer. Can’t be beat.

Now, as for the long-leaf salad, which is oh, so sweet and crunchy to the taste buds, the washing prep is pretty much the same as the radicchio. So, I’ll just give you the recipe we have year-round.

And there you have it. Casa Flacco’s two salad recipes I’m sure you’ll enjoy trying before the summer’s over.

Buon appetito!

Do you have any salad recipes you’d like sharing? How about ingredients? What do you like putting in your salads?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Charlotte

Posted on August 21, 2013August 22, 2013 by Jack Flacco

In the early part of the year when I first began my Women Who Wow Wednesday feature, I concentrated my efforts on kick-ass women. If you ever wondered about Ellen Ripley, Hit-Girl, The Bride and Mathilda, they’re all there waiting for your craving eyes. As the months went on, however, I noticed a subtle change. Rather than focus only on women who physically can beat the willies out of their enemies, I’ve also chosen to write about women who are kick-ass in heart, style and grace. Take a look at my posts for Debra Barone, Adrian, Rose, and Scarlett O’Hara.

Enter Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), who I’m sure doesn’t even have a last name in the movie Lost in Translation. At least I didn’t catch one, I’m sure of it. She’s stuck in a hotel room in the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku, Tokyo while her photographer husband is on assignment shooting who knows what. She passes the time staring blankly out her 56th floor window to the Japanese skyline. There’s a lot to see when you’re lonely.

Bob Harris (Bill Murray) makes his appearance soon after. A film entourage greets him in the lobby speaking nothing but Japanese. With certainty, something’s bound to get lost in translation. He’s twice Charlotte’s age, married, kids, and almost there as a favor for his agent who can’t get him a gig anywhere else. No one says he’s done, but the implication is there, given his stint working in a whiskey commercial in Japan.

They first notice each other in a cramped elevator filled with Japanese businessmen. They don’t say much. She smiles, yet continues with her day. It isn’t until they catch eyes once again in the hotel’s New York Bar located on 52nd floor that they wonder how weirdly coincidental life is. It’s late in the evening, he leaves, paying his tab, and she stays with her husband, laughing with friends.

Lost in Translation's Charlotte — Lost in Translation’s Charlotte

As the clock hits 4:20 AM, unable to sleep, Charlotte dives under the covers with her husband, but he grumbles something and tells her to go to sleep. In another room, four floors below, Bob lays awake sitting on his bed in a daze. A fax comes in from his wife in America asking him which shelves he wants in his study. Renovations, I suppose.

The next night, at 3:00 AM, again Charlotte can’t sleep. She finds herself at the bar as Bob remains seated, lost in his thoughts. He notices her. They strike up a conversation. He talks about his wife needing space. She talks about her husband’s work. They get to the marriage questions. She’s been married two years, and he says he’s got her beat at twenty-five years. In that brief moment she jokes about him experiencing a mid-life crisis and wonders if he had purchased a Porsche yet. He’s thinking about it, of course. He asks her what she plans to do with her life. She says philosophy—she doesn’t know what to do with it, but she can certainly think about it a lot. They click their glasses wishing they both could sleep.

So that’s how Charlotte meets Bob, in a bar, fifty-two floors above the Japanese skyline. It doesn’t end there, by any means. It’s only the beginning. You see, Charlotte represents a woman lost in life making a connection with someone who awakens her ambition to better herself. Someone who speaks to her soul. Not in an emotional or sexual sense. More on a deep, intellectual and spiritual level. Whatever she may have felt before meeting him hadn’t disappeared. It still lays there dormant, waiting. Yet he introduces something in her life, something of substance she craved.

He doesn’t ignore her.

Have you seen Lost in Translation? What did you think of Charlotte’s friendship with Bob?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Immortality

Posted on August 19, 2013August 22, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I get a kick writing about zombies. Unlike their vampire horror counterparts, I find the whole zombie genre fascinating. However, I dare not draw a direct comparison between zombies and vampires, even though at times one would be hard-pressed not doing so. Perhaps one day I can write about the transformation of the vampire genre in our modern age. But not today. Today, I’d like to add to my Monday Mayhem series the immortal nature of zombies.

When I think of zombies, I think of them as these non-stop, eating machines. In a past post, I’ve compared them to sharks. They hunt and feed. Nothing else. Their makeup is of the design of wanting to fulfill the emptiness felt within. They lurch back and forth, hauling their limbs from one caustic kill to another. Their only enemy being us, humans, who also happen to be their main meal.

Before zombies grew to become these grease-lightening, run-for-your-life, all-consuming creatures, as seen in World War Z, zombie fans only had George A. Romero’s biblical-like telling of how zombies should behave.

They had to drag. They had to moan. And they had to appear as if a truck ran over them. Several times, in fact. Their head tilted to one side became their trademark.

Yet, in all this, what does it mean? Every so often, I’ll add my two cents to the zombie coffers in an attempt to demystify the legends from fact. I’ll give an opinion regarding zombie origins, diseases, curses, events, possible apocalypse scenarios, and the like. I’ll delve into the science behind today’s zombie blitzkrieg, the whys and wherefores. The question remains though, what does it all mean?

If you will, allow me a few moments to lend you my take of what zombies represent in our culture. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I believe my opinion is ready for some good ol’ fashioned primetime critique.

I believe zombies represent humanity’s desire to capture the idea of wanting to live forever. This is not a new concept in the zombie genre. It’s been around a long time in the vampire realm, but for zombies, no one really talks about it. Who wants to? Do you want to see a zombie live forever? Uh-uh, not me. Not in my backyard. But, the implication is there. Zombies and humans have a limited shelf life. Both eventually will die and return to dust.

You might ask how can I know this? Look around. We have spas for rejuvenating vitality, convincing ourselves we can reverse the process of aging. Oils and lotions to keep our faces from losing collagen, so our skin won’t sag to our chest in our retirement years. We run, swim, bike, walk in hopes we can keep the heart pumping to an optimal level in order to avoid a massive coronary or fatal aneurysm. Our commercials tell us we’ll lose twenty pounds from our figure if we consume their products. It’ll make us look young and we’d be able to attract those much younger than us of the opposite sex. How young do we need to regress? Will we be satisfied if we have a magic cure-all to find ourselves back in our mother’s womb?

It’s a craving we have for youth similar to a zombie’s craving for human flesh. In a zombie’s case, no matter how much meat it eats, it will continue to rot until it dies a miserable death. Not much different from humans, really. We can shoot a man to the moon and back but we can’t find a cure for aging.

Do you think zombies represent humanity’s plight against getting old? Can you think of anything else zombies might represent?

Freedom Friday

Autumn

Posted on August 16, 2013August 15, 2013 by Jack Flacco

Autumn is my favorite time of year. I know, it is weird talking about fall in the middle of summer, but if you’ll amuse me for a moment, you’ll see where I’m going with this. Besides, I’m strange that way. I was the guy talking about summer vacation while it was still snowing outside. And believe me, being Canadian, although we do get quite a lot of snow, we don’t receive half as much as some of the places in the States. Anyway, let’s talk about autumn for Freedom Friday.

I like autumn. Yes, we’ve established that. I like it because of a few reasons. In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving a month prior to our American counterparts. So when we’re carving up our turkey, filling our gut with tryptophan, that’s the stuff that makes you sleepy after a turkey dinner, south of the border it’s business as usual. I suppose the reason for this stems from the fact our autumns come earlier. Yet, when I look at some of the northern states, they just as equally have fall around the same time. Therefore, I’m in a bit of a quandary as to rationalize why either we Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving early or Americans celebrate it late. Don’t ask me to google it, ‘cause I’m not going to. If you know, tell me!

All right, back to this autumn and Thanksgiving bit. I enjoy our Thanksgivings here in Canada because the leaves have all changed colors and haven’t dropped to the ground yet. It makes for a perfect opportunity to take some pretty awesome shots.

Now, where I live, I’m in the middle of farm country. We have plenty of cornfields, and tons of cows, horses, sheep and any other farm animals you can probably imagine. No, not velociraptors. Well, other than Halloween. The best part? We have a vast swath of woods to discover. I have been to maybe a tenth of what my area has to offer. The rest lays dormant for me to explore.

What else? I love autumn because it’s not too hot and it’s definitely not too cold. I need a jacket in the mornings, but I can shed it by early afternoon. Also, it’s the rainy season, and if you’ve read my blog long enough you will know just how much I love the rain. I relish the water beating down on freshly cut grass. The smell is intoxicating. Ah, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

My most beloved time is that sweet moment when the leaves begin to fall and the rain has yet to dampen them to a brown hue. The crackling sound under my feet drives me to want to dive into a newly raked pile.

In that time, one single moment exists I cannot resist. Late in the evening, when the wind tosses and churns the leaves into the neighbor’s yard and I stand there under a street lamp right before it begins to rain. I can feel it. That eerie feeling when everything’s about to erupt into thunder, and the lightening takes over the skies. My nostrils fill with the smell of moss. My ears hear the breeze wafting over my shoulder.

And then—it rains. Like a symphony.

I dash into the house and the skies explode as a choir of angels heralding the second coming. It’s beautiful. It’s spectacular.

Now do you see why I love autumn?

Do you like autumn weather? Is it strange talking about the fall when we’re still in the midst of summer fun?

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