Saturday, 18 January 2020

A Winter Bulls Eye

For the very first time this winter, it snowed!  Our last significant snow was back in early November.  Up until Thursday, we were still picking dandelions for the tortoise.  No more.  We got about 6" of heavy, wet snow overnight and into Saturday morning.  The sound of Harley Davidsons have been replaced by passing snow plows.  And we are set for four days of (slightly) below normal temps, for the first time this winter.  We've had a cold day here and there, but not four days in a row.  Poor St John's, Newfoundland.  Totally buried in snow, with hurricane winds.  And more snow coming.

With a little help from our next door neighbour, Brandon, our driveway is clear.  Sunday we just have to remove the blockage left by passing snow plows.  It was fortunate that the storm hit on a Saturday, as rush hour traffic was greatly reduced.  Roads were very nasty all morning, but are mostly clear now.  Nothing else in the forecast, so we can relax for a time.

In movie news, we watched Logan's Run this week, the third in a series of SF movies from the 1970s.  Again, this one holds up pretty well, though of course the effects are primitive in many places.  Michael York does a good job as the hero/leading man, and Jenny Agutter never looked prettier and more wholesome.  Her acting is understated and very well done.  Peter Ustinov is the lone old-timer, living in the ruins of Washington, D.D., with his cats.  Those ruins were very well done.
 From 1976, now a classic SF film. 

Since it's Deb's birthday this weekend (Sunday the 19th), she gets to choose two movies.  Wow!  What a lucky lady!  For her first one she choose a sleeper from 2015 called Songs My Brothers Taught Me, filmed on location at Pine Ridge, South Dakota.  An 11 year old girl grows up on the reservation, strongly influenced by her several older brother, each of them except one with the same father as her but a different mother.  We get a really close, very personal look at life at Pine Ridge today, especially through the eyes of two high school seniors who are in love, and planning on moving to LA after high school.  But teenage dreams don't always work out the way they are planned.  Though very slow moving, and seeming much longer than the 94' running time,  it's easy to get hooked on these people, especially the little girl, who is starting to search for her own identity, but still needs strong support from her broken and dispersed family.
 
From 2015, now showing on Criterion. 

With one more film to choose, what will it be?  Tune it next time to find out.  In the meantime, let's do another art selection from the DIA, something to take our mind back to those happy days when we had no snow on the ground.... 

Why not Egypt?  And looking very much like Mars, except for certain architectural and sculptural artifacts.

 General View of the Ramesseum, Luxor.  Late 19th C., Henri Bechard.  10" x 15".  Detroit Institute of Arts.

 Detail of above. 

There are a number of his photos of Egypt on-line at the DIA website, and they are fun to look through on a winter night.  Here is a link to them.

Mapman Mike

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