thisnewday

Usually, I'm not much taken with fictionalized versions of real events. I think I favor the hard edge of reality because, at one time in my life, I gave up so much to live there.

That was during the mid-1960s, after I quit teaching to become an anti-war activist and member of the counterculture which briefly flourished on the vast and varied landscape between urban communes and communal farms.

(In fact, my life in those days encountered numerous extremes across the political/apolitical divide. Much the way that Stephen Diamond's did in his account of the Liberation News Services's transformation from a politically-engaged instrument of change to what, for some, would be the epitome of social disengagement.)

Which makes it all the more surprising that I would find myself mesmerized by a film like 2007's Across the Universe. Or find myself enthusiastically agreeing with Roger Ebert when he calls it "an audacious marriage of cutting-edge visual techniques, heart-warming performances, 1960s to 1970s history and the Beatles songbook."

(Wherein lies another departure from my usual preferences. On any given day, as I drive through towns from Syracuse to Sylvan Beach, I find myself testing the local noise ordinances with Metallica's 1999 joint concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. My personal favorite is "No Leaf Clover." The Beatles? Bleh!)

And even though the cultural references are sometimes a bit literal and transparent, I find myself drawn to them as I might be drawn to the most vivid and poignant memories of my own past life. (Having said that, I'm also sure that I've missed some of the subtler ones.)

There's a young, black guitarist whose scorching licks make him a Jimmie Hendrix figure who sometimes plays with a gravelly-voiced Janice Joplin whose Po' Boys Band has to be Big Brother and the Holding Company. You get the idea.

Anyway, I think I've decided to take my B&N gift card down to the Boulevard and see if I can add Across the Universe to my "must see again and again" collection.