We've been home five days now, and are happily ensconced in our daily routines. Piano practice has resumed, after travelling for 17 days in the past month. Things weren't as ugly as expected! The pieces are very close to being ready for the final phase before performance. The group meets again May 5th. After that I should be able to pick a date for a recital. And reading took a bit of a beating for the past month, too, but I am forging ahead once again. A new routine about to be started up is the mowing of very fast growing grass. It has been an early spring; our white and pink lilacs are blooming already, as is the apple tree next door.
Last night was a Full Moon. Though it rained all day yesterday and was very windy, it cleared up by sunset. We saw the sun for a short while, and now the moon is up pretty high and is very bright. We had a wood fire, made a chick pea chocolate brownie Moon Cake, and listened to Handel's Solomon, one of his finest operas. A good time was had by all.
When we were in Sudbury we visited Cafe Obscura. It used to be a cafe and film camera store. It is no longer a cafe, but the film and cameras are still there. I picked up some fresh 35 mm film. Deb bought herself a super 8 movie camera. It is in mint condition, and only cost her $20. She has ordered film for it from Toronto, and wants try some film experiments with it to use as one of her projects. My special little Rollei camera is now loaded with film again. Of all the many cameras I have ever owned, that little Rollei takes the finest pictures of them all. There is no zoom, and I have to set the exposure by hand, as they don't make the correct battery size for its light meter any longer. Like the good old days, you have to set the focus, f-stop, and shutter speed. Still my favourite way to take pictures, though the Polaroid camera is loads of fun, too.
I'm trying to collect images of my Dad for the upcoming memorial, to be shown in the background in a loop. I have a pretty decent collection so far, and have yet to scan a bunch that I brought back from Sudbury.
L to R: brother Stephen, Dad, Mom, and me, a really long time ago. Lake Michigan in the background. I think we were in St. Ignace MI.
In movie news, there are a few to report. My leaving April 30th choice came from Mubi. The film is called Eve's Bayou, from 1997. Filmed in Louisiana, it is a bittersweet look at one summer in the life of a family, mostly seen through the eyes of 10 year old Eve. Her dad is an M.D., and is very unfaithful to his beautiful wife. Eve has an older sister, 14, and a younger brother, 9. The acting is quite good, the story seems true to life and very well told, and the setting authentic deep south bayou country. It's seldom that such a sensitive and truthful look at a Black family that gets torn apart as a result of several things that happen. The young girl and her aunt both have prescient powers, though nothing that finally happens in the film could have been foretold. I was strangely attracted to this film, and would highly recommend it. The kids in the story, especially the two girls, do a lot of growing up in a short time period.
Deb's leaving choice also came from Mubi. Blind Spot is a German film from 1981, directed by Claudia Von Alemann. A woman leaves her young daughter and husband in Germany and travels alone to Lyon, where she tries to get beneath history and find some unknown and unsuspected truths about a 19th female workers' crusader. She spends hours in a lonely and nearly empty city walking and visiting places where her historical heroine might have lived and walked. She knows the facts of her life and her work, but wishes to somehow get beyond these to more inner truths. She records sounds that might also have been heard at the time. It is a search doomed to failure, something she finally comes to terms with at the very end. The early morning summer street shots of an empty Lyon and its buildings, streets, and river would easily fill a very good photography book. It is a meditative film to watch, but one keeps hoping that the woman might be able to better articulate what it is she wants to find. She never really does, as she doesn't really know what she is doing, either. What the film does show is how dry and lifeless a history of a person can be, even a fairly interesting person. It often takes imagination to bring that person into full bloom, and only then can we truly imagine their experiences and their daily lives. This woman seems to lack imagination. Also, she wears the same expression all the way through the film, a neutral one best described as "beige." It is a good film, though, with many memorable scenes, especially in the restaurant.
Lastly comes a nautical noir film from 1950 and directed by Michael Curtiz. Called The Breaking Point, it stars John Garfield and Patricia Neal. With his fishing boat excursion business doing poorly, Garfield takes an offer from the devil to transport some Chinese immigrants from Mexico to the US. It doesn't go very well at all, leaving him even more desperate. Next time he agrees to take four violent robbers out to a waiting boat. They shoot his best friend as they cast off just after their robbery and throw him overboard. Garfield is a war vet, and ends up taking them all on once aboard the boat and near Catalina Island. A tense movie, and never has a man made so many poor choices and lived to tell the tale. His relationship with Neal, a barfly, and his wife, a treasure, are quite interesting. Similar in some ways to Key Largo, this one does go off in a few new directions. Worth watching for.
I have managed to publish the first four entries from our deep south road trip last month. The final segment, dealing with New Orleans proper, should be up tomorrow. Look on my Road Trip blog page (left margin).
Mapman Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment