We are enjoying another wintry weekend, with a bit of snow Friday and seriously cold temps today (high of 24 F). But official Spring is only a week away. The winter pictures will come off the walls, and up will go different ones. We have already had a few very fine days, and our snowdrops have been blooming for a week or so now. I may even start to go outdoors again next week, though mostly do begin yard cleanup and shrub trimming. Though I do have an uphill mode on my treadmill, I would prefer to get back to Malden Hill once a week for some serious hill climbing. Though there will be no spring hiking in New Mexico again this year, I am ever hopeful for early autumn, getting back to high country once again. I have so many unfinished hiking projects there I would like to complete, including at least three mountain crest trails. Two are half complete, while the third is a long one day journey.
I am currently reading my 6th book of 8 related to my Avon/Equinox project. Once the 8 books are read I have what I call free reading for the remainder of the month. The book I am now reading is a strange but satisfying mix of SF and fantasy, written by Jack Williamson in 1994. I am halfway through its 349 pages, and so far so good. There are flying unicorns, but also steam wagons, steam trains, and astronomy. There have been good characters, and the plot so far is building solidly. Go Jack! He was still writing this stuff well into his 80s. I can only hope I will still be doing similar activities during my 80s.
Deb continues work on her latest film, about four animals running away from certain doom once they have outlived their usefulness to their human masters. It should run under 10 minutes, and be a visual stunner. In piano news, I continue work on my next program. I will seek out lessons with Philip A. sometime after the 21st, before performing them for friends. My first Valeria book is currently being translated into French, as I await any news from 3 English publishers (can take up to 6 months) where the e-manuscript was sent.
I am still anxiously awaiting word on when testing will be dropped at
the border to return to Canada. I keep having dreams where I am in
Detroit, having a great old time, and then suddenly realize that I have
to find someplace to get a Co-vid test. Of course they are all
closed....
Turning to film watching news, Truffaut's Day For Night is one of his best and most accessible films. He plays a film director dealing with the many problems encountered in such an enterprise. No doubt these were all problems he really did encounter when making his many films. Very enjoyable viewing.
I Was A Simple Man is a film a lot of people rave about, but it left me pretty cold. Deb really liked it. It is a film from Hawai'i from 2021, telling in flashback parts of the life an older man now dying. While I liked the way the story was told, the character selected for the film turned me off to the production. The photography is beautiful, the dialogue is mostly quiet and sensitive, and the people trying to cope with the man's death are mostly caring and concerned. The man was a pool shark and heavy drinker, who fathered two kids. His wife died young and it left him even emptier as a person than he was previously. He passed off his kids to his sister-in-law, and never had anything much to do with them, despite an early closeness to his daughter. He barely talks as an old man, refusing to tell doctors anything. He continues to drink and smoke. He is nearly a blank slate, and never really develops into any kind of human character. The story itself goes nowhere, either. But quiet dialogue, lush atmospheric music, and superb photography have a lot of people thinking that this is a really deep film. He wasn't a simple man; he wasn't really a man at all. He was someone who faced hardship and failed to come to terms with it, or with anything, in his long life. To me a simple man is one who lives his life as best and as full as he is able, without self induced complications or unnecessary drama. This person was simply flat line throughout his life, at least according to the movie. Nothing to see here.
Next was a very entertaining film, as Guillermo Del Toro takes us on a one hour tour of his museum to pulp, horror, and SF collection, housed in an amazing building that he has customized down to the last detail. Called Adventures In Movie Going, it's one of a series where Criterion film buff talks to different directors about film. Del Toro talks about films that influenced him as he shows us around his palace of collectibles, a rare look inside a place that he uses for inspiration and research. Eye popping stuff!
Next up was Ken Russell's Mahler. Like most of his feature films, this one could have been quite good, if it had a lot less of Ken Russell and just a bit more Mahler. Like his Tchaikovsky film seen earlier, we get the basic facts and highlights (and lowlights) of Mahler's life. But we get a lot more, too, with some truly outrageous segments that are pretty embarrassing to watch. The music of the composer is used liberally and quite well, showing viewers where some of his important influences came from. It shows Alma's struggle with her own self, as she literally has to bury her hopes of becoming a composer, too. Set in the Austrian Alps, and on board a train travelling through Austria, the film uses flashback to tell much of the story. The flashbacks are always triggered by something happening on board the train, such as a town brass band playing at a station, or something Alma says to him. Not essential viewing for Mahler fans, but likely more for Russell fans.
Lastly comes a strange little b & w western from 1958, called Terror In A Texas Town. It stars Sterling Hayden as a Swedish man come to take over his aging father's homestead. When he arrives in town, he finds that his father has been murdered, and an evil land baron (Sebastien Cabot) is out to claim the land, with the aid of a hired gunman. The settlers and townsfolk are too scared to band together and stand up for their rights. Only Hayden's character will stand up to the bullies. The final showdown features the gunman with his pistols versus Hayden with a whale harpoon, facing off on main street. Weird but strangely watchable.
We are currently in the early stages of watching Cleopatra, a 4+ hr studio extravaganza starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and everyone else in Hollywood and beyond.
And, for your final entertainment, here are a few more pics from the family slide scanning project.
One of the first pictures I took with my first 35 mm camera, an Olympus. Younger brother Stephen and unknown sidekick. up till now I had used a Kodak Instamatic camera. 
Mapman Mike
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