Holidays at Home

That was the plan at any rate.  Then Gustav decided to get completely constipated on Christmas Eve.  Off to the emergency vet in Windsor.  It was busy, and we were there from around 8:30 pm until 1 am.  Gustav stayed behind.  He spent all Christmas day there, and then at 3 pm Boxing Day we brought him home.  He is back to normal now, after $1350 in vet care.  Enough said.

Aside from that, and one short excursion to A'burg, we have been home.  Trying not to spend any money.  We met Amanda for coffee, and some beer at A'burg's downtown brewery, then came back here for dinner.  That has been the totality of our social life this holiday.  Almost overwhelming.  There has been lots of good eating (ginger cookies in the oven right now!), some good listening (Haydn, Brahms, Britten, Monteverdi, and currently some Chopin Nocturnes).  We've roasted some coffee beans, and of course watched some movies.  

Last week Deb chose La Nuit de Varennes, a unique look at the French revolution by Ettore Scola, a favourite director of ours. From 1982, we have seen this wonderful film before, but it has been many years.  Much of it takes place on a long carriage ride from Paris to Varennes, where the king is finally captured, after fleeing the palace.  The carriage riders are a fascinating group, and the actors are perfect.  Costumes are outstanding, as is the dialogue.  4 stars all the way!

 An outstanding film, during the day and night that Louis was captured. 

My choice was Zatoichi On The Road, #5 in the movie series.  It contains one of my favourite scenes from any Samurai film--the famous dragonfly fight scene.  The whole scene lasts about 10 seconds, and the fight about 2 seconds, as Zatoichi, alerted by the flight of a dragonfly to three enemies stalking him, dispatches them from a sitting position as a young girl clings to him.  A remarkable scene.

Zatoichi On The Road, #5 in the series. 

It is my turn for the end of the month film festival, and we are currently watching the 1930s Marcel Pagnol Marseille trilogy, and the many extras that come with it on Criterion.  I will post about them, as well as my December reading progress, in the next blog.  Meanwhile, winter has yet to arrive.  We had nearly an inch of rain today, and it is getting really foggy just now.  No real cold air until next week.  I can live with that.

Mapman Mike

 

Solstice 2019

It was an unusual holiday, but another great one.  For one thing, it was sunny and clear all day.  I also had a clear night Saturday, and enjoyed 3 hours of observing late autumn constellations.  We saw the sunrise Sunday morning, and the sunset Sunday evening.  Of about 40 winter solstices observed here, this might be the first one where we saw the sunrise and the sunset, clearly.  I managed to go for a long walk, too.  Usually we remain indoors all day.  Deb wasn't quite ready for walking yet, but she is healing well.  We enjoyed an all-day fire (furnace turned down, due to very mild temps), snacks, and an opera by Monteverdi.  We heard "The Return of Ulysses," written when he was 74.  A masterpiece that really made the day special! Early Baroque opera, at least as practiced by Monteverdi, is a very unique blend of recitative and aria, forever mixing.  One never knows what will come next.  The melodic writing is divine, and the orchestra arrangement by Raymond Leppard was perfect.  The composer only left the melodic lines and a bass line--the rest was meant to filled in by the conductor/arranger.

 Winter Solstice sunset on our fireplace, 5:03 pm.  The light illuminated all of our petroglyph panels, as well as our Kachina dancers print.

 Winter Solstice sunset from our south window, looking over the Detroit River.  It was also clear Sunday night, but I did not go observing.

 My assistant assists with my astronomy notes today.

Our unusual mild spell will continue until at least the end of the month, when more seasonal temps will return.  In the meantime, there are motorcycles out driving around, and the shipping lanes are full of freighters making last minute runs.  A memorable time, indeed.

Mapman Mike

Syberia 3

Ever wonder where those jets are coming from or going to, the ones you see pass overhead?  We are often on the arrival and departure path of many flights out of Detroit airport.  Well, now it's easy to find out using a website called flightradar24.  The free version is okay, but the silver version (cost $10 per year) is so much better.  Flights to Amsterdam (3x daily), London (2x daily), Paris (2x daily), and Frankfurt (1-2x daily) all seem to fly right over our house on departure.  The flights to Asia head the opposite direction, so we don't see those.  And of course any amount of flights to Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada, and all points US often fly over, too.  I just watched the plane to Amsterdam fly over, and as I type I am awaiting the giant Lufthansa plane on its way to Frankfurt.  From the moment when it begins to taxi (yup, you can watch that, too) till it arrives over our house is around 4 minutes time.  A fun hobby.  Typically, around 13-14 thousand planes are in the air at any given time, world wide.  That is a lot of jet fuel being burned at any one time.

Syberia 3 is finally complete.  Deb gave up on it about halfway through, but I managed to finish it.  The worst part of the game, well, there are several big problems, has to be the limited view the player has of his surroundings.  It's impossible to look all around without moving the character, and often that is a clumsy process, for example when in a room.  And sometimes Kate Walker will get stuck in a loop, and keep marching on the spot.  In outdoor environments it is hard to figure out one's surroundings because of the limited viewpoint.  If you do make a wrong turn, the game could begin one of its many very long loads for the new environment.  then you have to reload the old environment just to get back where you were.  And there are serious bugs, and the only solution offered is to download a saved game and jump to that spot.  It is a really long game, much of it due to the loading time for adjacent environments.  Add to that that the story is simplistic and not at all engaging, and the ending is terrible, and there is very little reason not to replay Syberia 1 instead of this game.  The final puzzle (image, below) is also quite silly, and once solved you have to sit through a long concluding movie.  And did I mention that you cannot save a game, but must wait for the engine itself to save at its appointed time?  This makes the final complex puzzle nearly impossible to solve without putting aside an entire evening.  If you stop anywhere, you have to restart the entire thing.  There are some lovely environments, but also too many dark, dreary, and dingy ones.

 The final puzzle, shown part way through.

Anyway, the game is complete, and I have moved on to a game called Nibiru.  Hoping this one has some good qualities to it. 

Deb has had her 2nd laser surgery today, and is resting comfortably in her big chair.  A few days to recover, and one more session in February, and hopefully her pain and discomfort will be fully alleviated.  She also had her RA infusion earlier in the week.  Luckily our weather has been calm.  No snow is in the forecast, thus it will be a brown Solstice and Christmas.  We are both fine with that.  Makes driving much less stressful.  And we are in for a mild spell.  Mid 40s predicted for Solstice on Sunday, making it one of the warmest ones ever.  We will likely turn down the furnace that day, as we will have our all-day fire.  We've seen a lot of sunsets lately, too, more than usual for this time of year.  The Sun is basically at its most southerly right now, and by Monday or Tuesday will slowly begin its journey northwards.  I might even enjoy a clear night tomorrow!

Finally, in movie news, my choice of films this week was the 2nd part of Chungking Express, which the director wanted to be part of one long movie.  Instead, he was persuaded to make a 2nd film, which also has two weird stories.  Whereas the first movie showed Hong Kong in daytime, and sunny, Fallen Angels shows the city at night, and during the rainy season.  The 2nd film is darker in many ways, and much more violent.  Both films have a kind of unfinished feel to them, with endings that can hardly be called satisfying.  Still, the movies are easy to watch, and the characters so bizarre that trying to figure out what is really going on is nearly pointless.  Sit back and watch, and hopefully enjoy.

Here is a quote from the director about the two films, which I borrowed from Wikipedia:

...To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: "You've made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?" And I said, 'The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong." I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.  

 Now showing on Criterion Channel, along with Chungking Express. 

Happy Solstice to one and all!  Enjoy the dark days as much as possible, and have no fear, despite Trump and Brexit, the light will return, eventually.....

Mapman Mike

Sunday At The Homestead

Usually Sundays begin with either baked molasses French toast, courtesy of the master of the house, or whole grain nutty and fruity pancakes, courtesy of the mistress.  Three loads of laundry follow, and there is often some morning music (none today). It is too windy and bone-chillingly cold for a walk, so I went right to the piano after breakfast (pancakes), and Deb returned to her animation project.

Nearly every week, and sometimes twice, Deb wins a major animation award.  Her 2nd award of the week came in today, as her web series "22 Bones" won best web series at a major Australian festival.  My piano playing seldom wins awards, though it has happened in the past.  However, in order to win, one must enter competitions, and I haven't done that since my student days.  Anyway, my program is marching along.  I have increased my weekly practice time, and have begun narrowing my focus on the more difficult passages I need to master.  I am hoping for a January recital date, barring illness or injury.

I finished an excellent book by Hal Clement today (Still River), and we played a game of Middle Earth: The Wizards, which I lost by one point.  We also watched a movie.  Deb's film choice this weekend was called Gold Diggers of 1933, a Busby Berkley extravaganza starring Dick Powell, Joan Blondell (in one of her best roles), and gawky and awkward Ruby Keeler.  Comparable to 42nd Street, this one feels more like a play than that other great film, though many of the numbers are as spectacular.  The closing number is dedicated to the returning soldiers of WW1, who were scorned and forgotten by government, and often left on their own.  Definitely a film highlight, and worth watching.

Despite the cold weather coming in, and frequent minor snow squalls, it appears that we will have another white Solstice next weekend.  The longer that snow can be postponed, the better.  Our long delayed trip to Detroit is currently scheduled for Tuesday, after Deb's morning infusion.  A visit to two superb beer destinations is planned,and likely some other highlights as well.

The next painting to be featured from the DIA is, like the last one, by Oskar Kokoschka.  This one is an amazing masterpiece cityscape, and has long been a favourite of mine.  This is a large canvas, and very striking.  One is drawn directly to it when entering the gallery.  Last year we saw the magnificent painting of the same subject by Frederic Church, which normally resides in the art museum in Kansas City.  It would be amazing to see these paintings side by side.

 View of Jerusalem, Oskar Kokoschka, 1929-30.  Oil on Canvas.

31.5" x 50.5".  Detroit Institute of Arts.

 Detail of above.  The energy radiating from this painting is immense. 

Sunday evening, like all recent evenings, will conclude with some listening to recorded music.  Last night we heard the 2nd piano concerto of Brahms, a powerful work that grabs and holds the listener for a full 50 minutes.  Tonight we will be hearing Monteverdi's Magnificat For 6 Voices.  Can't wait!!

Hope your weekend was a great one, too!

Mapman Mike

Welcome to Brexit!

The UK has spoken, and spoken loudly.  Bye bye Europe.  And best of luck with those Donald Trump trade deals.  You'll need it.

It was another great full moon party, held Wednesday evening.  It was the coldest day and night of the season so far, and the wind was gusty.  No more snow as yet, and with some luck we will make it to Solstice without the white stuff.  The walking program continues as a result of clear sidewalks.  

Wednesday was also blood work day, for both of us.  Tuesday we returned the VW Tiguan to the dealer, as the 4-year lease had expired.  We now have a single vehicle, the VW Golf wagon.  Once astronomy season fires up, it's going to be a bit of a challenge with just one car.  But the way that greenhouses are popping up in our county, with lights on all night, I would say my astronomy days are nearly over anyway.  It's getting to be a sadder and sadder world each and every day.

This weeks movies were both in colour!  Diamantino was Deb's pick, a new film that just popped up on Criterion.  It began rather well, with a unique character.  But the movie soon fell into the modern plot trap.  Diamantino is the world's best soccer player, playing for Portugal.  But he misses his big shot at the world cup, and his team loses.  He gives up on soccer.  He is a very innocent man, who knows nothing about money or girls.  His money is looked after by his evil twin sisters.  He encounters refugees when on his boat, and he wishes to adopt one.  Instead, he gets a secret service undercover agent, trying to find out where he is laundering money.  Of course it's his sisters.  But the plot gets even sillier, and we are soon involved in a spy caper, with the Portuguese government secretly trying to clone Diamantino.  There are guns, of course, and violence.  The movie got ruined less than halfway through.  What began as something truly different just became the same old same old.  Watch the first half hour for some fluffy puppies that give Diamantino his luck at soccer.

My choice was Chungking Express, a Hong Kong film from 1994.  The film consists of two stories, both completely separate, but with both stories linked to a small take out restaurant in the market section of central Hong Kong. While both stories are interesting (there is considerable violence in the first story), the real star is Hong Kong itself.  This is not the glamourous banking and high rise version, but the real version where people live and work and shop.  The environment is like a very sunny and cheerful Blade Runner set.  In the second story, the main actress (Faye Wong) is a slightly off center young woman with a pixie hair cut, who slowly falls for, in her own strange way, a uniformed police officer that stops by for lunch where she works the counter.  Her character is hilarious, and though harmless, she does manage to upset things without meaning to.  There was to be a third story, too, but it was left out and became another move by the director, Wong Kar-Wai, called Fallen Angels (it's now in our queue).

It's fascinating to see the famous escalator in the movie, too.

The famous Hong Kong escalator features in the movie. 

 We are way overdue for a visit to Detroit.  Maybe this weekend.  Stay tuned.

M.

Approaching Solstice

Our sunsets are just about as far south as they go, with only a further 2 minutes to be shaved off sunset time.  By solstice we are getting about 9 hours of daylight, as opposed to the 15 we get at summer solstice.  And we've seen a few good ones from the south-facing window here at the homestead.

 Sunset showing the furthest southerly one.  The sun will continue to set at about this location for the next few weeks, before it begins its gradual return north.  View is from our south-facing window, overlooking the Native American cemetery across the road, and the Detroit River and Michigan.

 We've seen some beauties lately. 

For the 2nd half of my film choice for this week, we watched an oddball silent film by Chantal Akerman.  Hotel Monterey is the 2nd film by her we have seen.  It's an interesting experiment that requires some patience and calmness to get through, but it does ultimately offer rewards.  The camera is mostly still, showing different scenes from a NYC hotel in the 1970s.  Most of the imagery is like viewing a photo for a long period of time, sometimes several minutes.  The action sequences include riding up and down an elevator, picking up and dropping off people, and, near the conclusion of the one hour film, having the camera roll forwards and backwards as it captures various interior and exterior views.  Probably not a film people with claustrophobia would enjoy.  Many of the static compositions are highly artistic, and occasionally one thinks of Hopper's paintings.

The next two paintings I will illustrate from the DIA are by Oskar Kokoschka, an Austrian expressionist painter who died in 1980.  Detroit has one of the largest collections in the world of German and Austrian expressionist art, including four paintings by Kokoschka.  The artist lived in Dresden from 1917 to 1923.  Eventually all of expressionist art was rejected by the Nazis.  Detroit had a German museum director in the early 1930s, and it was he (Valentiner) that procured many of the unwanted paintings.  The director was also responsible for the incredible coup of landing Bruegel's Wedding Dance in Detroit. 

 The Elbe Near Dresden, Oskar Kokoschka, ca. 1921.  23" x 31", oil on canvas.  Detroit Institute of Arts.  

The bright colours and the blockish buildings remind me of a child's painting.  Unlike the Rousseau painting seen previously, there are no figures present here.  The river seems to be as turbulent as the sky, and the reflections add an eye-catching accent to this strange little work.  The detail below shows the broad brushstrokes, similar to those of the late Van Gogh.

 Detail of the central area, above. 

We are just a few days from having to return our VW Tiguan, as the lease expires on the 10th of this month.  We will be down to one vehicle, the Golf wagon, which will have to take on astronomy duty from now on, as well as any upcoming cross-country drives.  We will wait and see how that works out.

M.

 

Art and Film

The Environs of Paris, 1909.  Henri Rousseau.  18" x 22".  Detroit Institute of Arts. 

This odd little cityscape is one of two paintings by Rousseau in the DIA (the other is a flower still life), and it was painted one year before his death.  Nature has been reduced to some trees, the river, the sky and clouds, and some sand.  Industrial Paris dominates the scene, with smokestacks and chimneys rising to the sky.  The mast of the lone sailboat seems almost ludicrous by comparison.  The odd geometry of the buildings, as well as the use of flat colours, almost takes the picture into fantasy.  The silhouetted figures add a very inadequate human touch to the proceedings.  It's somewhat fitting that this picture ended up in Detroit, a city whose own industrial defamation of a great river is only now being rectified.  Watch out for some more cityscapes in the days to come.

There are several new exhibitions at the DIA, and a small exhibit on our painting by Bruegel will open soon as well.  We haven't enjoyed a Detroit day in far too long, and must get there soon to see the holiday lights and decorations, which are truly astounding.  Our weather of late, being cold, dark, damp, and dreary, has not been conducive to outdoor activities.

For this week's film I have chosen two shorter works.  Tonight we watched an episode of Adventures On The New Frontier, a TV documentary show from 1961.  This first episode is the only one available on Criterion, and is a 52' b & w look at a busy day in the oval office for the newly elected president John F. Kennedy.  It is a fascinating look into one of the most liberal and idealistic leaders the free world has ever produced.  Tomorrow we take on another film by Chantal Akerman, this one just over one hour long.  We'll see how that goes.  I am looking forward to it.

Having just finished my Atlantis/Stonehenge book by Harry Harrison and Professor Leon Stover, I learned more about those two subjects that I ever knew before.  How Stonehenge was built is no longer a mystery, nor why it was built, nor why there is an incised bronze Mycenaean dagger on one of the monoliths.  It certainly is not a calendar.  According to the professor, in an essay following the fictional story, due to chance there should be up to 48 solar and lunar predictions, accurate within 2 degrees.  And in fact, there are only 25 such line ups.  Similarly, there is no mystery to Atlantis, though due to an error in translation, the island was said to have been destroyed 9000 years earlier, when in fact it should have read 900 years (at the time, which was about 500 B.C.).  The island is Thera, which most people in the know have recognized for some time.  Anyway, the story is based on history and science, and was a great one.  No pansy Druids or fake crystals here.  It would be pretty difficult to argue with Professor Stover and his bibliography.

M.

November Reads

I read 7 books related to the Avon/Equinox authors, and 1 book that wasn't.  That one book was a SF novel of some length (over 300 pages) by Sherri Tepper, called After Long Silence (The Enigma Score in Britain).  It details life on a planet that may have intelligent life, in the form of crystals that grow to mountain size.  From 1987, it was my main read during my trip to Sudbury.  A pretty intelligent book, and definitely worth reading.  I gave my cope away to a Sudbury friend when I finished.

I began November near the end of my 16-book author rotation with a novel by Ballard, called  The Unlimited Dream Company, about a man who dies in a plane crash, but who then experiences a suitably strange after life.  This is a phenomenal book, spell binding from the first word onwards.  I took my time with it, which I always do with Ballard, as the novel is rich in imagery, and often requires pause to think about matters occurring.  So it was a great start to the month's reading! 

Next up was Barry Maltzberg's incomparable Gather In The Hall of Planets, about a SF writer attending a convention, and being told by aliens that if he doesn't discover who the alien is masquerading as, the world will be destroyed.  The book completely spoofs SF fans, cons, and is a very funny story.  I laughed at nearly every single dark-humoured page.  This is a book that a true fan of SF literature should read more than once. 

A cycle of reading is complete when I arrive at James Blish, long a favourite SF author.  I began rereading his Cities In Flight novels, likely the best SF series ever written.  The first novel, They Shall Have Stars, begins at the beginning, just as several major developments are about to come on-line, enabling travel to the stars.  The VR scenes on Jupiter are so far ahead of their time that they still resonate.  A true classic, and an excellent beginning to such a wonderful series of four novels.

Well, that makes for 3 books in a row to which I awarded 4 stars, from the Avon/Equinox authors.  What could top that?  Well, not the next book, which was a real clunker from Robert Silverberg.  Called The Seed of Earth, the first half is one of the most abysmal stories I have ever read.  The second half at least achieves average pulp standards.

After Silverberg comes Norman Spinrad.  I spent a huge chunk of the month reading his 500+ page novel called He Walked Among Us.  The premise is amazingly good, and this is the author's third attempt to help Earth avoid environmental catastrophe.  In the end, though, one tires of Spinrad's voice, and especially of one of the characters, the one from the underworld, so to speak.  I really wonder how many people actually finished this novel of those who started it.

I began a new series by Piers Anthony, a major author who I have come to like more and more.  His genius is undisputed, but sometimes he has difficulty expressing himself clearly and concisely.  God of Tarot is a kind of St Anthony in the wilderness story, and is quite well written.  However, I didn't feel totally engaged, instead feeling like an outsider watching things happen.  Perhaps just a bit too clinical.  Some stunning attacks against religion!

I'm running out of novels by John Christopher.  I have begun his Tripods series, with The White Mountains being the first book he published as an author for children.  This mixture of SF and fantasy serves as the template for virtually all of his youth novels.  I thought this was his last series written, because of the publication date.  But the books are reissues from the 60s, and were actually his first.  In my edition the author talks about his experience trying to get this book published in Britain and the US.

I am currently reading a Stonehenge book by Harry Harrison, which I will review soon on the Harrison page of my Avon/Equinox blog. 

Sunday afternoon was Philip Adamson's 6th concert in a years long series playing the 32 Beethoven Sonatas.  yesterday's program included the monstrously difficult Hammerclavier, lasting nearly 55 minutes.  It was a beautiful and magnificent performance!  Now that Philip has a bit of free time once again, I shall try and sneak in a lesson with him.  My own pieces are coming along, and might be up for a January performance or two.  We shall see how December goes.  Randy G. also attended the concert, and we went out for coffee afterwards.

Also on Sunday afternoon was Deb's appointment with a heart specialist from London, Ontario.  Basically they cannot go ahead with any treatment for her until she can provide an EKG strip during one of her episodes.  So we are going to work on that problem, and hopefully provide a strip on her next SVT attack. 

Sunday evening Amanda L came over for a visit, her first since last Christmas holiday.  We had a bit of catching up to do, and even found time to play a round of the Dr. Who card game!  Sunday was a busy day, and our most social in a long while.  I'm afraid we are becoming hermits. 

Last weekend was also Deb's choice for a film festival.  She chose three films directed by Anthony Asquith:  Pygmalion, The Woman In Question, and The Browning Version.  All three are remarkable films in some way or other.  These monthly mini-festivals are fun to have, and with nearly unlimited choice for grouping them, they should continue indefinitely.  Along with the listening programs we have going on, many pleasant evenings are being spent here at the Homestead.  We are prepared for winter nights.

M.