Two Films From 1935

It's Friday night here at the Homestead, and it is pouring rain.  It will continue to do so all night.  By contrast, last night was one of the finest astronomy nights I have ever had in this area.  Conditions were superlative, and I took full advantage.  It was dark enough to begin at 8:30 pm, and I finally started packing up around 2 am.  My eyes had seen enough!  I got work done in four different constellations, and some of the low-lying southern sights I saw I thought I would have had to travel to NM to see properly.  I am still euphoric today, as I slog away at my notes and diagrams.  I was in bed around 3:30 am, and oddly enough I had a terrific astronomy dream, too.  Bonus!

By coincidence, Deb and I each chose a film from 1935 to watch this week.  On Wednesday evening (it was cloudy) I selected "The Count From Old Town," a Swedish comedy.  Likely it only survives because it is the first film that featured Ingrid Bergman with a leading role.  But it is actually a really good little film, an inoffensive comedy that was filmed mostly outdoors in Old Town, Stockholm.  Bergman is a maid in a cheap hotel, and meets the love of her life.  But is he the mastermind jewel thief criminal that dominating the headlines?  She radiates charm and beauty in every scene she is in, but doesn't always steal the show from a cast of fantastic (most likely stage) actors and actresses who all get to share the limelight.  Now showing on the Criterion Channel, and recommended viewing.

 The Count of Old Town, a Swedish film from 1935.

 This was Ingrid Bergman's first starring role.  She would have been 19 or 20.  

Tonight we watched another Fred and Ginger film, the justly famous Top Hat.  With unforgettable songs like "Dancing Cheek To Cheek," a supporting cast to die for, outrageous modern art sets, hotel rooms that would put Buckingham Palace to shame, and several off-screen anecdotes that make the film even more fun, this is required viewing for film musical fans.  The duo dance up a storm several times, but Astaire really excels in many of his tap routines, including a soft shoe routine on a wooden floor sprinkled with sand.  The plot is silly, but there are some hilarious lines, most of the best ones delivered by Erik Rhodes as the fashion fop Alberto Beddini.  

From 1935, Deb's film choice this week.

The world's most famous ball room dancers. 

And in other film news, it is film festival weekend!  Once a month we take turns selecting three films to watch over a weekend.  It's Deb choice, and she has selected three by Richard Lester, an American director who based himself in the UK.  Stay tuned for more soon, including a quick summary of my September reading.  And maybe someday that Canaletto spread I've been promising.

Mapman Mike

 

Everything and Nothing

The title of this blog is named after a fascinating documentary we watched on Prime, hosted by Professor Jim Al-Kalili.  Programs such as this are an astronomer and science lover's best friend on cloudy nights.  He simply and brilliantly encapsulates the history of physics, focusing on the perceived emptiness of a vacuum.  Worth repeated viewing, at least once per year.

I have had two clear nights in a row, driving 37 miles each way to get into a reasonable dark sky.  That's almost 150 miles of driving just to get somewhere decent to observe.  Luckily, it is worth the drive.  I enjoy satellite radio on both vehicles, so I generally listen to either Symphony Hall on Sirius XM, or public radio for the incredible talk shows.  So the time goes fairly quickly.  Best of all, I only have three traffic lights in those 37 miles, and traffic is generally quite light on the roads I take.  Monday night I was at my windmill sight for five hours.  No cars went past.  Tuesday night I was there for four hours--one vehicle went past.  It's good to have a night off to recuperate, however.  Thursday is promising to be clear once again, so I should be ready.

Deb's movie choice last week was a little oddity called Fiend Without A Face.  A classic 1950s SF paranoia film, it supposedly takes place in Manitoba, at a remote US air base.  Nice mountains they have there in Manitoba!  These old movies are truly great.  For one thing, despite four or five grisly murders, no outside police are called in.  There is no RCMP even mentioned, though the FBI is always used for info.  Pretty funny stuff.  In essence, radioactivity (of course) and a nearly mad professor's experiments (of course) combine to give us some of the most unique monsters in the history of cinema.  They are walking brains, using the attached spinal cords to locomote.  Nifty and scary as hell, too.  Well worth a watch, I don't really know how I missed this one growing up.  Now showing on Criterion.  It comes with a six minute short discussing the opening of this 1958 treasure.  It opened in Detroit on a double bill with a Karloff feature, at the classy Adams Theatre downtown.  Thereby hangs a tale, and a pretty funny one.

A recent view, showing on the Criterion Channel.

 A local fiend (without a face) attacks the beautiful assistant to the professor. 

In other news, Deb has had her 2nd and final shot of Shingrix, to prevent the onset of shingles.  Her arm is red, hot, and painful two days later, but the fever and flu-like symptoms that seem to accompany it have retreated.  And she has won two awards recently, one from the Women Over 50 Film Festival in Brighton, England (a 3rd place, I believe), and a Best Director award for her dance film, "Joyfully."  So Huzzah once again!!

And just tonight I got slaughtered in a friendly game of Carcassonne.  I just could never pick up the correct tile, while you-know-who got virtually every one she needed.  I think I got my use of bad and fearful language out of the way for the week.  We played a variant called "Flying Machine," where you can fly short distances to nearby tiles.  Just like in real medieval times.

Mapman Mike

Burdensome Dreams

I chose Les Blank's Burden Of Dreams to watch this week on the Criterion Channel.  Having seen Fitzcarraldo twice so far, I had always wanted to see this film.  It is a documentary on some of the goings on during the filming of the Amazon jungle film by Werner Herzog, who was nearly driven mad by the ordeal.  No wonder.  It came with three other shorter films, likely made for the DVD release in 2005.  Les Blank returns with a 38 minute film in which he interviews Herzog about Fitzcarraldo, his 1982 epic film, again in 2005.  This little film is called Dreams and Burdens.  It puts a nice cap on the proceedings.  Then came 6 minutes of footage left out of Burden of Dreams, all to do with Klaus Kinski.  In the first clip, Kinski is having one of his raging tantrums, this time against the production manager for the bad food he is serving.  The next clip shows a smiling Kinski, as a butterfly takes to him and will not leave him.  It flies to his face, his shoulder, his head, his finger, and a smiling, relaxed, and nature-loving Klaus greatly enjoys the attention.  Lastly came another short film by Les Blank, called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.  We learn why he eats his shoe, and we watch him prepare, cook, and eat it.  I love the man even more now.

Though we are two days from the official beginning of Autumn, the heat is still on.  We broiled and roasted today on our Detroit visit.  The sun was merciless, too.  It's still a very fun city, but on every visit it becomes more and more apparent that the Q-Line streetcar system is an embarrassment to the city, and to public transport in general.  Less said the better.  We poked around the New Centre area first, and just by chance found a relatively new vegan restaurant called "The Kitchen."  We walked in and did our usual ask for the menu, to see if anything was vegan.  "Everything is vegan," said the wait person.  That was different.  Right now it is only open for lunch weekdays, 11-2.  The chef does a lot of private events, and is just starting to break into the restaurant scene.  The place was busy, and is in an area of Detroit that had really fallen down.  It seems to be slowly picking up, though.

Tonight is the official beginning of the newest astronomy sessions.  It will be cloudy tonight, Saturday, and Sunday, so far.  The three previous nights were perfect.  Sigh.

Mapman Mike

Mapman Mike

Summer's Last Hurrah

The final week of official summer is turning out to be a masterpiece of weather conditions.  Sunny, quite warm, breezy--in fact, since about mid-July we have had a very fine summer this year, missing much of the heat and humidity usually characteristic of this period.  Although it has been very very wet.  How wet?  Our grass is still growing like it's June, and I'm still chopping it back with the tractor.  The Monarch butterflies seem to be making a comeback, too.  We have seen more of them this year than in many previous years.  Not a small victory at all, but a major one.

Looking at last year's astronomy autumn work, there was none.  I observed on September 3rd, 2018, and then it got cloudy.  Exceedingly cloudy.  I next observed in January of 2019.  It was a nightmare season, and I fervently hope that it never (ever!) happens again.  

This time last year we were on our way to New Mexico for my 65th birthday celebration, which consisted of four very fine hikes, and a very long return drive.

 This a photo from last September 17th, showing me driving west towards NM. 

I timed the trip so that we would be there during a full moon (harvest), and back for some late September astronomy.  No astronomy.  Not even in October, or November.  In December we were off to Vienna, so I may have missed a night or two that week.  Anyway, I have been preparing my observing list for the next session, hoping that it will actually happen.  Autumn skies are often the best ones, as it gets dark earlier and some of the most interesting constellations are up.  There are no bugs, either.  So it will be clear this week, but the moon rises too early.  Next week, we shall have to wait and see.

Today is my mom and dad's wedding anniversary.  I talked to them both this afternoon, and they are getting on fine, though not looking forward to another cruel winter spent indoors.  Enjoy these last days of summer, and with luck it will be a mild autumn, too.  Have a happy day!  

Deb's movie pick last weekend was another Barbara Stanwyck flic, this one called Forbidden, from 1932.  It also stars Adolphe Menjou.  Not one of her best films, nor Frank Capra's.  It was based on a story by the director.  At least it was short.

 Definitely not "her greatest dramatic role."

Speaking of films, Deb went to Shetown in Detroit on Sunday to see her film screened.  That same day the same film was also screening in northern Michigan, and a different film of hers was showing in Europe somewhere.  Hard to keep track of her successes these days.  She won the audience award last week for a short film of hers that showed in Cadiz, Spain!  One would think we would be rich beyond our wildest dreams by now.  I wonder what Deb is doing with all that award money.  She certainly has a lot of certificates and laurels.

I'll try to find time to fit in a DIA painting next time--Canaletto, anyone?

Mapman Mike

No More Weekends

Weekends at Lone Mtn Homestead have been cancelled until further notice.  At least when I was teaching one day a week, it still felt like a (6-day) weekend when it was over.  Now what do I do?  How do I unwind?  From what do I unwind?  Can I really celebrate a 7-day weekend, perpetually?  I'll get back to you on that, after a bit more experimentation.

It began to storm and rain Thursday at 2:30 pm.  By 6 am Friday morning, we'd had 2.6" of rain, which is a lot.  We got hit with storm after storm, one following another.  And guess what?  Beginning Friday around 5 pm, more storms are scheduled.  With higher temps recently, the grass is growing like its June again.  It will likely be a rather green start to autumn next weekend, rather than the burnt brown we are used to.

My film choice for this week, from the Criterion Channel, was an oddball French film from 1943.  Called Lumiere D'Ete (Summer Light), it told a simple tale of older girl loves older boy, younger girl loves middle-aged boy artist, and a younger boy also loves younger girl.  Older boy does not love older girl, but also loves younger girl (boys are rather predictable, apparently).  Middle-aged boy artist does not really love younger girl, but loves himself.  And round we go.  Sure, the plot is rather silly, but the setting for this movie is unbelievable!  A hotel with a fabulous glass front, for the restaurant and bar, is perched high on a mountain in Provencal.  The scenery is spectacular, as is the hotel.  Nearby are two other points of interest.  A vast dam is being constructed, and often towers over the characters in the movie.  It seems like a project that Saruman would be working on, with its night machinery, incessant dynamite blasts, a speeding narrow gauge steam train, vast elevators, and towering cliffs.  It's quite a contrast to the idyllic hotel.  Some symbolism going on here?  Methinks yes.  The young girl is being slyly seduced by the older boy, who we find out is quite a rascal.

 From 1943, and directed by Jean Gremillon.  All five main characters are shown on the poster.  The artist is top left.  The bad guy weirdo pervert has messy hair and a bleeding mouth.

The other big attraction up here is the castle of the older boy, who is quite rich, spoiled, and eccentric.  He hires the boy artist to work for him at the castle, so that he will bring along the young girl.  The artist , as it happens, is quite a bad one, with balnd indeas.  As the plot thickens, a masked ball of particular insanity is held at the castle, as the movie hurtles to its climax.  Unfortunately, the climax is pretty lame.  But some of the goings on beforehand are worth watching.  Again, unfortunately, the creation the artist is working on at the castle is a complete dud--he takes a beautiful gallery sized room and paints it all white.  The old guy agrees to anything, as long as the younger girl stays there.

A very strange film but it will be awhile before I forget that hotel, or the dam.   Speaking of films, Deb is showing (and talking about) And She Road Forth on Sunday at Detroit's Shetown Festival at Cinema Detroit.  That film looked so fantastic on the big screen in Cincinnati, it should be a hit here, too.  It was also chosen to play in the touring "Best of the Best" films from the Women Over 50 Festival in Brighton.  It will play in London and around the UK over the next year.

My arm is still sore and red from my Shingrix shot on Monday.  Hmm.  Haircuts for both this week, and the car just had an oil change.  Excitement never stops at Lone Mtn Homestead.  Come back for more adventure sometime, you hear? 

Mapman Mike

Monday Musings

Two of the West's leading countries are currently so messed up and hopelessly adrift (I could use another word, starting with "f", but this is a family friendly blog), that it is almost like living in one of my absurd SF stories.  Britain, thanks to Brexit, and the USA thanks to Trump, have approached and gone way beyond the bottom of their respective barrels.  Canada could soon follow, if our Conservative leader gets in and ousts Trudeau.  Never have two leading countries been so divided.  Yes, lots and lots of people in Britain actually support breaking away from the European Union (mostly based on lies they were told when the vote occured), and yes, lots of American people support Trump.  I really can think of nothing more frightening.  Stephen King is an amateur at horror compared to reality.  It's times like these that make me proud not to have brought any children into the world, to see the unimaginable mess we have created.

And on a similar note, it is so sad and tragic that the biggest hurricane in a long time flattens the Bahamas, but mostly misses the USA.  I'm not wishing for a major hurricane to hit America, but there are so many climate change deniers there that only several great tragedies, such as the one that hit the Bahamas, will give voice to the few who want action.  Trump considers it a "niche" issue, and did not bother attending climate talks at the Paris G7 summit.  Stupid is as stupid does.  None of his party seem to care, either.  At least Boris Johnson is getting some flak by some of his own party for his Brexit tactics.  Not Trump.

Deb's movie choice last weekend was a great one.  Mike Leigh has long been a favourite director, but there are many of his films we have never seen.  Such was Career Girls, a great little film featuring an outstanding performance by Katrin Cartlidge as Hannah ("It's HannAH."  She and Annie (Lynda Steadman) spent four years living together during college, and Annie is returning to London to spend a weekend with her old friend, after six years apart.

Highly recommended.  Mostly a comedy, there is some well-inserted drama, too.  Well worth a watch.  Andy Serkis gets a pretty funny part, too, as he shows the girls his flat, which is coming up for lease, wearing only his bathrobe.  The girls are less than impressed, but highly amused.

 Annie (l) and Hannah (r) are the stars of the movie.  

Today I got my vaccination for shingles.  Shingrex is a two-part injection, so I will return for the next one in December.  It is a newer drug, one that Deb can have (and she also has had part one).  Tonight it has left me with a sore shoulder and some mild aches and pains.  It is 95% effective against shingles, which one in three adults get if they have had the chicken pox.  I had chicken pox when I was 8--on Halloween.  I was not impressed.  The older drug, which is the only one still paid for by the government (for seniors), is only about 60% effective.  That's the government for you.

On the weekend we also played a card game of Middle Earth: The Wizards.  Our main tournaments last for five games, each one longer and more complex, after which we play several mini-games using the same decks, games that I invented.  This was the 2nd game of our mini-tournament, following the big five.  We had hoped to play Teotihuacan, but it is still waiting in the box.  It is a long game.

This weekend is the Shetown film festival in Detroit.  Deb has a film showing there Sunday afternoon.  Nice having a showing locally, with no travel required. 

I think I am all caught up on news.

Mapman Mike

Retirement

It's a bit strange not to welcome back piano students to a new year of lessons.  At the same time, I had a pretty relaxing week that included a 5-hour astronomy session.  Wednesday night was beautiful, but the moon was getting bright.  I went out to the site later, closer to moon set, and as a result didn't leave the site until 3:15 am.  That put me into bed at 4:30 am, which really messed up my Thursday.  But all is well, and the astronomy session was fantastic!  But that's all until the 20s of September.  Last year I observed on September 11th, and that was it for the entire autumn--it was perpetually cloudy for the first time in memory!  I hope that never happens again.

I seem to have been able to get back into my Syberia 3 game for PC.  I have replayed some of it to get back to where I was when my saved game got erased.  You cannot save games in this game--it saves automatically where you left off.  Pretty stupid planning for a relatively new game.  It's not even that much fun to play--I'm just stubborn, I guess.  We hope to get in a game of Middle Earth The Wizards this weekend, as well as another beginner's version of Teotihuacan, the massive and fun newest board game that we purchased.  A really big discovery for me this past week was a website filled with perfect scans of old comics that can be read for free.  It is so fantastic, and I have been reading on-line a lot.  Here is the website, if you are interested.  They have just about everything. 

The first thing I read was The Airtight Garage, a takeoff on Jerry Cornelius (Michael Moorcock's creation), by Moebius.  Comics do not get any better than this!!  There is so much on this website--between this, the Criterion Channel, and my Avon/Equinox reading project, I may never go outside the house again.

Speaking of Criterion, I have two more movies to report on.  Deb's most recent choice was called The Purchase Price, a 1932 William Wellman picture starring--yup, you guessed it-- Barbara Stanwyck.  I never used to like Ms. Stanwyck until I began watching her 1930s pre-code films.  She is a great actress, and was usually given amazing roles to play, which she then played amazingly.  In this one she plays a city night club entertainer who leaves New York and goes to Montreal to escape her bootlegger boyfriend, whom she does not love.  Then she ends up taking the place of a mail order bride, heading out to North Dakota (but filmed in Alberta, I believe) to marry a wheat farmer.  A really weird story is actually quite watchable, and though the film is only 67 minutes long, it packs a lot into the short time.

A film from 1932, now showing on the Criterion Channel.

 My choice of film for this week was also very short.  Only 45 minutes or so, in fact.  We had seen Luis Bunuel's Simon of the Desert, from 1965, many many years ago.  We had loved it at that time, though remembered virtually nothing about it.  So it was like seeing it for the first time again on the Criterion Channel.  It came with a 6 minute interview with the actress who played the devil, perpetually tempting the ascetic and trying to trick him into rejecting God.  One of the more memorable scenes has the devil arriving in a coffin, self-propelled across the desert and coming to rest before Simon's plinth.  Neither of us liked the ending, in a 1960s discotheque.  For one thing, it was too long.  The music and dancing just went on and on.  At least I know what Hell looks like.  For another thing, Simon did not look miserable enough.  Nor did he get up and dance.  Anyway, it's a one of a kind film, and was meant to be part of a trilogy of short films with other directors.  That never materialized, so we are left with this.

Showing on the Criterion Channel, along with other films by Bunuel.

   Mapman Mike

August Reading, and Two Movies

I took 3 days off practicing piano and memorizing pieces for our trip to Cincinnati last week.  I lost ground, but not too much.  The Brahms Waltz is proving difficult for me to memorize, but the Haydn is coming along nicely.  I hope to begin the 3rd and final movement of that Sonata, memorizing it.  It shouldn't take too long to jam it inside of my head.

In August I managed to complete 7 books related to my vast and virtually unending Avon/Equinox Rediscovery Project.  I also read two outside books.  While the number of books may be lower than my average, the page count remains the same.  Several of the books I read last month were quite long, with very small print.

The first three books were by Ballard, Malzberg, and Blish, the final three authors of a reading segment.  Each time I conclude a full segment of the remaining Avon/Equinox authors, I read a book unrelated to that series.  Thus after every volume by Blish comes something completely different.  The Ballard book was Concrete Island, another nightmare scenario where the protagonist is trapped.  I found this book to have made its point, and it did have a message, but that it was too contrived for my taste.  Even so, many parts of the book stay with you, and likely always will.  Ballard has a sense of what being isolated is really like.

With every book by Malzberg that I read, I like him more and more.  Confessions of Westchester County is a solid 4-star Looney Tunes cartoon, and I loved every minute of this fascinating story, and the sick-minded characters that inhabit it.  Different from anything else I have ever read.

The Blish tale was another total masterpiece.  Called Doctor Mirabilis, it is Blish's historical fiction based on the life of Roger Bacon, a 13th Century scientist trying to reconcile his religious faith with what he was learning about nature.  The novel loosely fits in to a very loose series by Blish called "After Such Knowledge."  I have now completed my rereading of this (loose) series.

With another cycle of Avon/Equinox authors complete, I picked up E. R. Eddison's Viking epic off my shelf, called Styrbiorn the Strong.  When Tolkien and C. S. Lewis revere a writer (their quotes are on the book), one should pay close attention.  I had only read his Zimiamvian cycle.  This was his first work outside of this fantasy world that I have read, and I loved every minute of it.  It also helps to see where his ideas for The Worm Ouroboros might have come from.

I also finished up a hardcover art book I had been reading for some time, called Italian Baroque Paintings.  That title covers a lot of territory, and it was a fascinating read.  It took me ages to complete, but I did finally finish it.  I began reading it after I had completed the two Bruegel catalogues from Vienna.  I love paintings, and I love reading about paintings.  I even love writing about paintings.  But I cannot paint.  I can draw a teeny bit with pencil.  If reading art books and viewing art could make one into an artist, I'd be pretty awesome by now.

It was time to begin a new cycle of Avon/Equinox authors.  I read a 400-page volume of short stories by Silverberg, covering the years 1962-69.  Too many great stories to mention here (see my Silverberg page for short reviews of each story), but I might just mention "To The Dark Star," and "Hawksbill Station."  Great stuff!

Next came Spinrad's magnificent epic novel Greenhouse Summer, his take on global warming and how the world might look once things really begin to get seriously warm.  Hint:  corporations will be in full control.  While a bit on the theatrical side, this is a truly great novel, filled with fun (but theatrical) characters.  Like most of Spinrad's tales, there is a lot of sex, but usually sex with a purpose (not procreation, either).  From 1999, it remains completely timely today. 

I also finished Piers Anthony's 2nd Cluster novel (there are five).  Anthony is a genius, and on the same level as Frank Herbert.  He is not a polished writer, however.  Too many fantastic ideas and details come pouring out of his head, and he can become overwhelming at times.  But truly great, if the reader can keep up with him.

I finished up the month (reading it in Cincinnati) with the third book of John Christopher's Fireball Trilogy, called Dragon Dance.  Not a great book by any means.  The first one in the series is the best, followed by the 2nd.  This one seems a pale shadow of the first two.  However, by a very strange coincidence, Roger Bacon makes an appearance in a book I read within the same month! 

To see the covers of these books, and read the full reviews, refer to my Avon/Equinox website.  It should be found in the left margin.

Nicolas Roeg's SF classic, The Man Who Fell To Earth, had never been seen by us in its longer version.  We saw one many years ago that ran 117 minutes, and it was a very bad print, fitted for TV.  This was a restored wide screen version, with over 20 minutes of extra footage.  David Bowie is nearly perfect as the alien who to Earth seeking help for his family.  They are dying back on his home planet.  He becomes the richest man in the world, seeking to build a rocket ship.  His plan is undone from many directions, not the least of which is his own weakness of character.  This is mostly a thoughtful and engaging film, but there are many moments where rolling ones eyes might be the best way to pass the time.  A ton of extras came with it on Criterion, but the film ended its run there at midnight last night.  It's a flawed film, but worth seeing more than once.

 Last night we watched a rather brilliant film from 2003, called I Capture The Castle.  Based on a novel written during WW 2, it describes a family living in a ruined castle in England in the mid 1930s.  Two teenage girls try to grow up and prosper amid the ruins of the castle and their family.  The acting is first rate, with a special nod to Romola Garai, who plays Cassandra, the sensitive and intelligent young woman searching for love, but finding only pain.

Mapman Mike

Cindependent Film Festival 2019

We left home Wednesday morning for Cincinnati.  Lots of road construction, so we meandered after a while on back roads.  We checked in to our (complimentary) hotel, a first class joint with a gallery of changing contemporary art.  We freshened up and headed uptown to a pub where the meet and greet took place.  We checked in, got our (complimentary) V.I.P. lanyards, and sat down at a table to relax.  Deb ordered some food and I grabbed a pint of local pale ale.  We were soon joined by Justin Z., a filmmaker from Portland, OR.,  and so much more.  His film was showing Saturday at noon, but we would be departing Friday at noon.  Justin was also staying at our hotel, so we ended up hanging out with him for the entire visit.

Justin also writes graphic novels, works at a film production company in Portland, and runs a film festival there!  A busy guy.  So we had some interesting discussions over the few days.  While the three of us were sitting there, shouting at one another (the pub was crowded and noisy), Justin noticed a very tall, handsome, older gentleman sitting down at the table beside us.  Joel joined us, and again proved to be a most fascinating and fun-to-be with human being.  He is a sculptor, and also runs a theatre group in Cincinnati.  He was attending to scout for local actors.  So the four of us became a sort of team.  Joel turns out to have two websites, one for his sculptures and one for his peace poles.  Believe it or not, his website is joel.com.  Check it out to meet Joel--he is an amazing man!  From there you can link to his peace poles, of which he seems to have cornered the world market.

As to the festival itself, we attended 39 (short) films, including three by Deb.  She was on stage two times, to talk about her films and answer questions.  We saw some totally amazing films, and several that were quite forgettable.  In fact, in reviewing what we saw on the drive home, we could not remember anything at all about a film called Gloria, other than we saw it.  Deb's film And She Rode Forth looked completely amazing on the big screen! 

All films were shown here, at the Woodward Theatre.

 Film schedule poster, and reflections.

 Some of the immediate neighbourhood, filled with pubs, stores, cafes, and restaurants.

 Deb on stage Thursday morning. 

 ...and again, next day.

 Deb and Allyson, the festival organizer.

Cincinnati has some impressive forested hills surrounding the city.

Near the theatre.

The Ohio Bookstore, downtown near our hotel.  I picked up 9 SF paperbacks.

Cafe clock.

Downtown skyscraper. 

It was a whirlwind trip, and it would have been nice to stay for all three film days.  Not sure we'll be back next year, but if so we might consider a longer stay.  It's a perfect film festival to attend.  Everything is close by, Cincinnati is a large and very animated city, and there is lots to do if you want a break from watching films.

Mpman Mike