Synecdoche, New York

“So, what in the world was going on in Synecdoche, New York movie?”

Chances are, you’ve never asked this question. I haven’t really been asking it either, but I woke up the other morning with its answer in my head. Don’t ask me why—I can’t even remember when I saw the film (it was months ago).

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Synecdoche, New York is the latest movie from writer Charlie Kaufman (who also gave us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, among others). Kaufman generally spotlights the bizarre in his movies (sometimes in a very disturbing fashion), and Synecdoche is no exception. In a nutshell, it tells the story of Caden, a critically acclaimed playwright/director who embarks on the ambitious project of recreating his life as a large-scale play in a New York warehouse.

As he commences work, it quickly becomes clear that this play won’t be hitting any stage any time soon. Its scope is ever-expanding, adding characters everywhere. Caden even hires an actor to portray him as director. (Later on, this actor hires another actor to portray him playing Caden the director. Catch that?)

In the midst of his efforts to get a handle on his play, Caden is forced to watch his family and friends leave and then hate him, and eventually die. Old and lonely, Caden switches spots with one of his actors—suddenly finding himself living his life on cue. As the movie ends, Caden is walking through his gigantic set, which has been suddenly transformed into a post-apocalyptic world, and ends up dying on cue as well, sitting next to a lone woman on a bench.

So, what’s the point of this story?

Death is a central theme in this movie. From the beginning, Caden is obsessed with death: not in a morbid fascination kind of way, but in a “I’m really concerned that I might be dying and really don’t want to” kind of way. He’s a hypochondriac, religiously visiting doctors and checking his stool to see if it’s normal. And then, suddenly, he embarks upon his big play.

But this isn’t mere artistic nonsense. Caden the director spends large amounts of time (and, it seems, an inexhaustible amount of money) re-creating his life for the purpose of creating some distance. You see, he likes the director’s role: it’s something he can control, a position from which he can sit back and treat life as an observer. And so it is that the scope of his play is ever-growing. It’s not enough to be the director: he has to be the director directing the director who’s directing the play.

Caden doesn’t really deal with significant events in his life. Instead, he recreates them in his play, dealing with them by not dealing with them. Up until the end, when he finds himself living on cue, spiraling towards death, fading to gray as he succumbs to the inevitable command: “Die.”

Saving Face

Saving Face: The Art and History of the Goalie Mask
by Jim Hynes and Gary Smith

The introduction of the goalie mask is unquestionably one of the most important stories in hockey history. It’s a tale fraught with tension and tradition, a struggle between hesitant coaches and stubborn goaltenders. Most hockey fans are familiar with the classic stories—an injured Jacques Plante refusing to play without facial protection, the gruesome tales of broken noses and rinkside stitchings. What Saving Face does is collect all these tales in one place, and then follow the story further.

It’s this latter part that makes this book special. Every hockey fan knows who Jacques Plante was, but does the name Bill Burchmore ring any bells? How about Ross “Lefty” Wilson? Ernie Higgins? Jim Homuth?

Hynes and Smith track the evolution of the mask, from its early fiberglass days to the helmet-mask approach (most famously introduced by USSR goalie Vladislav Tretiak). More importantly, they know the names of famous mask makers and explain how they first took on this bizarre task. By the end of the book, you won’t simply have seen a collection of cool pictures: you’ll actually be familiar with who designed what and, if you’re really sharp, be equipped to pinpoint differing mask styles at sight.

That said, the pictures really are the best part of this book. Several classic masks are featured in all their glory, allowing the reader a chance to see just how artistic they really are. Oddly enough, the best paint jobs tended to be for lesser goalies. Or maybe that says more about my tastes. (A shout-out to Davey, my Chicagoan friend—the Blackhawks win the “Best Masks Award” hands down. The three Chicago masks featured in this book are both tasteful and awesome, which is no small feat.)

Go to the Net

Go to the Net: Eight Goals That Changed the Game
by Al Strachan

In my sophomore year of college, I took a year-long history class that many might consider unconventional. It was broad, beginning with the ancient Greeks in August and finishing with twentieth century America in early May. As you can imagine, our trip through time was quick: the goal was not to learn about people and places (though we did), but to understand how and why history is written.

The biggest lesson was this: historical accounts are never objective. Every story has two sides (at least), and every historian writes to communicate something. No historical account is ever “just the facts”; it’s always, “Here are the facts, and this is what they teach.” If you pretend that history is objective, then you may misunderstand its lessons or worse, blindly accept false ones.

Which brings us to Go to the Net. I’m convinced that if hockey is still around in 100 years, and if people want to understand what hockey was like at the turn of the twenty-first century, this book will prove invaluable. It’s unashamedly subjective and charts a storyline that not everyone would agree with, which is pretty much why I think that it’s a book every hockey fan should read.

Written during the infamous 2004-05 NHL lockout, Strachan’s book is as much diagnosis as it is history. His diagnosis is generally subtle—his goal is not to solve the NHL’s problems. However, he clearly believes that the storyline of Canadian hockey from the 1970s to the 2000s offers lessons that cannot be ignored.

Yes, Canadian hockey. Strachan is, after all, a Canadian journalist who is primarily concerned about the state of Canada’s game. What he charts here is its growth from a lesser-skilled game relying too heavily on violence (the kind that Bobby Clarke fabulously displayed in the 1972 Summit Series). Each goal marks a pivotal moment—some disappointing, some joyous, but all full of backstory and significant context. These are only eight goals, but they are eight goals that tell an awful lot about Canadian hockey’s ups and downs, and give some insight into its future.

Perhaps I’m making this book sound too lofty. That’s really the last thing I want to do. Go to the Net is a simple book in the best possible sense. It’s meant for the average hockey fan, not scholastic types. Strachan does provoke thought and ask some wonderful questions, but he’s primarily telling stories. What’s more, he writes as an observer—he witnessed most of what he describes in this book and managed to interview people like Don Cherry and Scotty Bowman (among others) to fill out what he didn’t.

You may disagree with Strachan’s conclusions. If you’re American, you may be annoyed by his Canadian focus (though he’s not one to take pride in being not-American). But I’m willing to bet that you’d still find this book entertaining and still find his questions worth pondering.

Saved

Saved: A Novel
by Jack Falla

Much has already been said about the late Jack Falla and his contributions to the canon of hockey literature. And though he’s better known for his two essay collections (Home Ice and Open Ice), the merits of this novel have not gone unnoticed. It’s authentic, it does a good job of describing how hockey players think in the middle of play, and it’s downright entertaining to boot.

There are two things I particularly loved about Saved. First, Falla manages to turn the NHL’s 82-game season into an engaging storyline. And this is no small feat: even fans can get tired of today’s NHL seasons, opting to reserve their excitement for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But our hero, goalie Jean Pierre Savard, is a charmer who easily keeps the reader’s attention. Sure, it’s gruff charm, but then, this is a hockey novel—what else would you expect?

Second, this book is about real people. I imagine that it’s difficult to make readers look at NHL players as real people. After all, fans tend to think of them as stars and celebrities, insanely talented players whose lives are (to us) the stuff of dreams. But Falla invites us to take a different approach. He writes out of love for the game. The same love that inspired him to build a backyard rink is evident throughout Saved, and that alone makes it a worthwhile read.

If nothing else, it’s good to know that, after years of watching and writing, Falla could still see the magic that first attracted him to hockey and pass it on to his readers.

The Greatest Hockey Stories Ever Told

The Greatest Hockey Stories Ever Told: The Finest Writers on Ice
edited by Bryant Urstadt

Quibbles first: I don’t know if anyone can fairly claim to have collected “The Greatest Hockey Stories Ever Told.” There are far too many to fit in one volume, and no matter how varied your selection, you’re going to miss several stories that some diehard hockey fan somewhere will gripe about. (Which is why I’m going to end my complaint there.)

That said, please don’t make the mistake I did and assume that this book will fall short of your expectations. Urstadt’s collection is worth every penny. From 1980’s “Miracle on Ice” to junior hockey in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Urstadt has managed to capture the many sides of the game, offering blow-by-blow accounts of hockey games from around the world—including Romania and Corpus Christi, Texas. (Believe it or not, they’re actually quite similar.)

There are highlights, some of which I’ve mentioned in other blog posts. Red Fisher’s memories of Hector “Toe” Blake (“Toe”) are a glimpse at days gone by, days that today’s young fans like myself would do well to learn about. “The Style of the Man” by Hugh Hood, also about a famous Canadien, uses near-scientific poetry to describe the graceful ferocity of Jean Beliveau on ice. Almost every selection will have you flipping to the back of the book, looking with hope to see if it was merely an excerpt. (I myself have added several books to my wish list thanks to this volume.)

The one disappointment, oddly enough, is a short article by William Faulkner (“An Innocent at Rinkside”) originally printed in Sports Illustrated. It’s clear that Faulkner didn’t understand and didn’t like hockey, and in the end, he uses his presence at Madison Square Gardens to question the common practice of beginning sports events with the national anthem. Blech.

So, even if I can’t help but complain about the title, I have to admit: this book serves up some darn good tales. You’d be sorry not to pick it up.