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