The Life Aquatic
The Life Aquatic
Ever since Moonrise Kingdom, I have had my concerns about Wes Anderson, less as a film director and more as a person. In that film I was simply offended by him having a young pre-adolescent girl running around flashing her white underwear. Strangely enough, if he had put her in colored or flowered underwear I would have had less of a problem. To me it was like having a sultry young girl slink around in a Catholic girl’s school plaid skirt and white blouse looking all disheveled. It might be me, but I think that creates a fairly universal and intentional piquing of prurient interest. I think men have enough trouble controlling the hand that nature has dealt them with their libido and they certainly do not need someone like Wes Anderson poking into those hidden and hopefully controlled urges. One look at the pictures of Wes Anderson was all it took to convince me that this was probably a guy who did not accidentally stumble on some unknown deep-seated lust that lurks in men’s souls, but rather played it (admittedly somewhat with humor rather than evil intent) for all it was worth. This was less Coca-Cola learning that caffeine is addictive than Philip Morris deciding that increasing nicotine draw from their cigarettes was good for business. Playing on other people’s weaknesses is never a good thing.
I have always loved the majority of actors who constitute Wes Anderson’s stable or regulars. Bill Murray alone is a great redeemer. The Wilson Brothers, Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Blanchett, Angelica Houston, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bob Balaban, Brian Cranston and Greta Gerwig…to name a few. At some point you have to bow to what must be the genius of the filmmaker and say that he has an amazing talent that industry people seem more than a little prepared to accept. Of course, the same could have been said about the investing prowess of Bernie Madoff, so we need to always be mindful of getting carried away by popular acclaim.
In his heyday, Woody Allen had a similar retinue of stars who were willing to join his film library. I thought his humor was universal, but I was always surprised when someone not from New York scrunched up their nose when Woody’s name was mentioned. This was long before his run-in with suggested pedophilia and quasi-incest. By then, mentioning Woody’s name in polite company ranked somewhere between singing the praises of Bill Cosby and farting loudly at the dinner table. I, for one appreciated Woody’s work to the extreme right up until his work became weird. And it did go from hilariously funny to offbeat to weird to extremely weird. Somewhere between Match Point and Midnight in Paris the shift began. By the time Irrational Man hit, Woody had lost me just like Joaquin Phoenix (his star along with the equally weird Parker Posey) lost me after Gladiator or Best in Show respectively.
I don’t know why I have gone down this Wes and Woody street except that the life aquatic is something I seem to have returned to and I can’t say that without thinking about Steve Zissou and Wes. Steve (a modern day Captain Ahab) is in search of something ephemeral and fleeting. I have started to go to the gym again after a long absence and I have chosen to go to free Aqua Fit classes offered at this LA Fitness gym, which is the closest one to my home and is also a prototypical California gym from what I can tell. I too am seeking something ephemeral and fleeting. It is less about eternal youth or even “fitness” in the broadest sense of the word. What I seek is a reduction in those few aches and pains that afflict my joints and lower back. By almost any standard for someone my age, I am in fine shape in those regards. I have never had any knee or joint surgery (even arthroscopic) and have never had any back injury that needed more than a chiropractic or osteopathic one-time correction. The running joke with the chiropractor I saw in NYC once in a long while was that I should come in for regular adjustments and I would say that since I only see her once every two years, I am pretty regular without adjustments.
Nonetheless, I do notice that I walk more slowly and take stairs with great care since I know that at my size and age (I am big and getting older by the minute), I need to be careful with my joints and probably my overall body. I feel like a big price will be paid if I have an accident at this stage. So, I want to strengthen my core for comfort and flexibility and strengthen my limbs so that I have a lower chance of a joint injury that will be hard from which to recover. This all just seems like the sort of sensible precaution that retiring people need to consider since they presumably have more time on their hands to do such things. So, my chosen poison for the moment is to start with aqua aerobics as part of a free class. It also makes me feel like I’m getting great value for my $1/day cost at the gym. I’m just a hop, skip and jump from clipping coupons and going for the early-bird special.
The class is made up of twenty or so people, almost all of whom seem older than me. I got crosswise with one today for taking what apparently was his own personal floating noodle. It seems some regulars to the Aqua Fit class have custom equipment. I apologized, but I saw him glancing at me throughout the workout, looking worried that I might rush him and steal his prized noodle. I also notice that the regulars are into doing the chores of distributing and collecting the equipment for the instructor. One such chore is removing the swim lane markers. When I tried to help, one guy who says he’s been doing it for six years said it was a bit tricky so I best leave it to him. Okay, I have been put in my place as the rookie in the pool. There’s a whole protocol among this Aqua Fit community and some clearly want new blood in the pool. One woman from Southern Asia kept encouraging me and telling me I was doing great for a first-timer. She also made excuses for the noodle guy by telling me all the people in the class are lovely and not to take any offense at the earlier proprietary rebuke. Another guy asked me if I was new to the area and when I told him I was he said no one moves to California anymore. When I said I was from New York he nodded and said he understood the move better now.
Between my daily hot tub time and my Aqua Fit class, I’m spending 100-120 minutes in water every day. I can’t yet tell if that’s good for me or not. I see Michael Phelps on TV talking about how he has finally gotten a grip on his life. He used to spend three to five hours in the water every day. So I’m hoping the life aquatic does not make me go looney tunes. For now I just want it to make me feel like I’m ready to graduate to Mat Pilates. From there I’m sure I can conquer the world or at least Yoga.