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