After waiting seven months, our local bus stop received its permanent sign. I got sick of calling people about it, so I finally gave up. Then it magically appeared, one for northbound (Windsor), and one for southbound (A'burg). Bus stops are a big deal, though most people don't recognize the fact. Most people have cars to get them where they want to go. From my bus stop, I can get to virtually any other bus stop in the world, including Caroline's, in London, UK, for example. In fact, I have two ways of getting there. I would need to bring a backpack, though.
Method One sees me catch the bus to Windsor literally in front of my house. Once there, I transfer at the west terminal to the #1C Windsor bus. That takes me downtown to the main bus terminal. Then get on the #8 bus (all of this is included in my fare paid near home) and head to the Windsor Airport. Fly to Toronto, then fly to London. Take the Piccadilly Tube, and transfer to the Jubilee Line at Green Park Station. At Canada Water Station, transfer to the #381 bus. Get off at Shipwright Road stop, and walk the short distance to Caroline's flat.
Method Two is the same until I reach the main Windsor downtown bus terminal. From there I transfer to the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel Bus, get off at the main Detroit bus depot, and catch the SMART Fast Service #261 to Detroit Metro Airport. Fly to Heathrow, and follow the same directions as above. Flying from Detroit eliminates Toronto Pearson Airport, usually a good thing.
My bus stop, just outside my door. A gateway to the whole wide world.
Caroline's bus stop in London, UK, is much fancier than mine--she has a bench, a shelter, and a garbage receptacle. But we are now indirectly connected across the globe, thanks to public transport!
Anyway, I'm glad that our signs are now up. The temporary signs always blew away in the first gale. We are now officially on the map! I've only used the service once, in a trial run for coffee and beer to Windsor last fall. But now I plan to use it a little more often. Maybe even go visit Caroline again some time.
In other Homestead news, Titan Tree Service finally made it here to clean up our mess from the late February ice storm. All is now well once more, though we have an awful lot of wood chips and firewood lying around. And the lilacs this year are insanely numerous and beautiful. We have both purple and white lilacs. Both are fragrant in the heavenly sense.
The backyard purple lilacs.
The backyard white lilacs.
Good friend (through both astronomy and music) Randy G. stopped by for a welcome visit this afternoon. Lucky for him he happened upon a day when Deb had made blueberry scones for breakfast! There were even some left over for his afternoon visit. I am hoping to see him out at my windmill observing site one of these days. He brought us a book of poems by his sister recently published, and getting very warm reviews. Looking forward to reading it!
Now on to recently viewed films. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter was directed by Frank Tashlin, who had his hand in cartoons before he turned to movies. From 1957, it stars Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield in a pretty funny story about an advertising man getting the idea of asking a movie star to endorse a lipstick company. The opening pre-credit scene is a classic Tashlin touch, among many others seen throughout this film.
Leaving Criterion May 31st.
Deb started her two choices with a drama direct by Ernest Lubitsch. From 1932 and starring Lionel Barrymore comes Broken Lullaby. It's about a French soldier, a musician, who kills a German soldier during the war, also a musician, and, driven by extreme guilt, goes to Germany to tell the family what happened. Quite a good story, and often well acted. Barrymore plays the dead German boy's father. Set in a small German town following the war, the French are not very welcome.
Showing on Criterion until May 31st.
Deb's main choice was an oddball film from Thailand/Spain called Uncle Boonmee Who can Recall His Past Lives. It won the Palme D'Or in 2010. The uncle is dying of kidney failure, and his illness brings ghosts and other spirits to him and his family in their quiet home on the outskirts of the jungle. They mostly sit and talk quietly with them. Definitely worth checking out.
Now showing on Mubi. Most unusual.
Switching back to two of my choices, first up was the uniquely named feature from Japan called Detective Bureau 2-3: Go To Hell Bastards, from 1963 and directed by Seijun Suzuki. The movie is as stupid as its title, but fun to watch regardless. A private detective in Tokyo infiltrates the yakuza who are raining terror upon the city. Gunfights like you wouldn't believe! Hilarious and more than a bit far-fetched, as 1960s Tokyo tries to emulate and outdo 1930s Chicago.
Now showing on Criterion. For real.
Still in the realm of the bizarre, the funny, and the 'way the hell out there' kind of film, I chose the first two parts of a 4-part French TV series from 2019 called The Middleman. Each episode is around 45 minutes long, so we will finish it up later this week. Here is the Criterion blurb about it, as it's kind of difficult to describe it in my own words. The world's biggest loser tries to keep his life from completely falling apart, but it's way too late for that.
"Cocreated and codirected for French television by celebrated Israeli
author Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, THE MIDDLEMAN is a drolly offbeat
four-part miniseries set in a captivatingly surreal universe. Mathieu
Amalric, the hangdog everyman of Gallic cinema, stars as Olivier, a
divorced real estate agent desperate to repair his strained relationship
with his daughter and so broke he camps out in the apartments he is
supposed to be selling. The death of his mother brings many surprises,
including a very unexpected inheritance: a building on the outskirts of
Paris. But what at first seems to be a windfall soon turns out to be a
run-down money pit that only compounds our hapless hero’s problems.
Luckily, Olivier has just the friend to guide him through these troubled
times: a talking goldfish who turns out to be a most valuable confidant."
Leaving Criterion May 31st.
Back over to Deb's pick for one final film for this blog entry. Kedi is a 2016 film from Turkey about the local cat population of Istanbul. A charming documentary, it follows the daily lives of eight different cats and how they survive on the streets. Many cats are very well looked after by the locals, but it still is a ridiculous situation that will only get more ridiculous as time goes on. Warning: there are a lot of cats in this film. It would be fun to visit some of them someday.
Wrapping things up for this weekend, it was Mothers' Day today. I spoke with my mom, and managed to get her to see the following photo, from about 1965.
Mapman Mike
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