Gangs of NY

So Monday night... homework or Gangs of New York? Guess what won. If you said homework, well then you are delusional. If you said Gangs, well then DING DING DING we have a winner! Now usually I would agree that my work should come first, but I waived that standard Monday and let me just say, what a choice! I'm not sure if you've seen it or not but spoiler alert, this blog is going to give some of its glory away. The movie starts off with two different gangs (the natives and the dead rabbits) calling duress to one another in their own argot. The leader of the natives, The Butcher believes in only 'true' Americans and therefore hates the Irish immigrant's gang, the dead rabbits, led by The Priest, Vallin. As the two gangs meet each other in the streets, The Butcher derides The Priest's culture. Naturally The Priest hectors The Butcher and it seems the only way to redress the scuffle is for an all out brawl. Those responsible for creating this movie did nothing to censor the amount of realistic gore evident in this scene. But the riled up crowd of dead rabbits grew saturnine as they watched The Butcher kill The Priest. No one took this harder than The Priest's young son, Amsterdam Vallin. The Butcher took Amsterdam and sent him away to this Christian boarding school. Fifteen years later, Amsterdam returns to his hometown with the plan to ruse The Butcher into trusting him and then kill him, not only avenging his father, but also usurping The Butcher's power as well. The Butcher is always committing invidious acts and to kill him would exorcise the town of his evil ambience. I don't want to give away the ending, so you'll just have to watch and see what happens!

Calm Down Edward Scissor Hands

I understand that Augusten felt that there was a stigma against him because he was gay, but that fact that he was living with a psychologist must have been helpful. The description Augusten gives of the Doctor's home creates a nice supplement to the details of Dr. Finch's personality and gives the reader a deeper insight into the mind of this complex character. While I believe it was impossible for Dr. Finch to absolve all of Augusten's issues, he certainly could circumvent quite well. His unique style of parenting and general honesty/openness with not only his children, but Augusten as well, led to an openminded household and environment for Burroughs to grow up in. While I may find his tactics to be a bit amorphous and even odd, I cannot deny his skills as a powerful, guiding light in Augusten's life.

I'm not sure why I entitled this blog post the way I did, but I love Johnny Depp and the fact that he was in a movie with 'scissors' in the title (so naturally he managed to seep into my blog).

Running With Scissors

This memoir is about the life of Augusten Burroughs and describes how his childhood years transpired. I'm only about a quarter of the way into the book, but so far the part that I found to be the most salient was the caricature Augusten paints of the Finch home. Augusten viewed doctors as individuals possessing a great deal of cachet. He therefore always pictured that their houses would be ethereal and vogue. Instead, Augusten was forced to abrogate this imprimatur and accept that doctors too can live in squalor. The funny thing is that after a while he came to find their home alluring all the same.

I suppose the crux of the story so far is supposed to be that Augusten is gay, but for some reason the description of the Finch's house elicits more empathy in me. I think this is because I have a family friend who lives in a house similar to the Finch's. It's not like my friend is living under the nadir, she just keeps a much less tidy home than my family. I feel like Augusten whenever I make the sortie over to my friend's house. I don't want to sit on their couch because it might be sticky and I'm certain that all of their silverware is loaded with spots. If I were Augusten I'd be more concerned with the roaches than I would be with my sexual preferences.