Deb's stent was removed last Thursday, bright and early at Met Hospital. It was becoming very uncomfortable, so she is happy now that it is gone. Three days later and she finally feels more like her old self. Speaking of old self, yours truly has a birthday today, along with Bilbo and Frodo and the Autumnal Equinox. There will be much celebrating. There will be cake. No wood fire, however. Yet again the weather is too summer-like to have a fire. It hasn't rained here in nearly a month, so for my birthday I want rain; lots of rain. I've been watering our new grass around the deck and it is growing just fine. But everything else is very very thirsty.
Last time around I promised myself some reflecting. I will focus first on Travel, and what we have accomplished so far in life. My love of travel hit me at a very early age. As a young teen I would walk the railroad tracks near our house, often for many miles, just to see what was around the next curve. Various friends would accompany me and we would have a fine day. No food, no water. Crappy shoes. Just walking all day, often in the sun. Usually we would hear trains approaching us from behind, but sometimes they would sneak up if they were coasting. Two close calls. We usually hitch-hiked home afterwards, tired and very thirsty. There were no plastic water bottles back then, only canteens. We carried nothing. Sometimes we would have money, and if we ended up in a town with a corner store we would buy a pop. Later on I fid some solo hitch-hitch-hiking, mostly south towards Parry Sound. Maybe a part of me knew that Deb lived there. I made it as far as Pointe-au Baril one Saturday, about 75 miles from home. No i.d., but some cash. There was a store at the end of my journey, with a very cute and very freckled girl working there. We chatted while I drank my pop, then I turned around and got a lift back to Sudbury. This ride was interesting. It was two black dudes from Detroit and they were driving a Cadillac. I could barely understand them, but they were fun to ride with.
Lake Penage was where our family camp was located. It was a camp at first, too. No electricity, no phone and no road. We had to arrive by boat. Over the years the camp got turned into a "cottage", which was pretty much like a house only right on a beautiful lake. From here I would do day trips with a small boat, sometimes alone but often with Kenny T., a cousin-like friend who had a camp near us, and a very young cousin, Bill. Bill and I ended up going for a really fun canoe day trip, driven far into the wilderness by my Uncle Jimmy. He picked us up later. We explored a lake, having to portage in, but we found a creek that allowed us to paddle out. We also encountered a black bear. I have many black bear stories, including a few from New Mexico. But this time we were paddling out from our day at a remote lake along a very shallow and very narrow stream. We came across what we thought was a small bear. We stopped paddling to watch it. All of a sudden the bear became very, very large. It had been standing in a hole! We both started paddling, but in opposite directions. The canoe made a complete circle before we finally got going. We were laughing so hard we could barely paddle. the bear could have had us for dinner quite easily, but luckily it became startled by two maniacs in a canoe and it took off. Here's the punch line. Behind the bear, which was only about thirty feet from us, was a rock wall, a cliff about thirty feet high. That bear just ran right up the cliff before disappearing into the woods.
When Deb began visiting the lake she and I would do similar day trips to the far reaches of the small lakes that surround Penage by the dozen. We spent our honeymoon in August of 1976 at the camp, doing canoe and boat day trips (we also got married at a small church on the lake). That led to two major canoe trips in the fall of 1977 and 1978. From the camp, and from any nearby hill, the outline of the La Cloche Mountains could be seen. They were about twenty miles away to the southwest. As a kid I often fantasized about those mountains. I could see them very clearly in the telescope from camp. But it wasn't until Deb and I undertook our two canoe trips that I really got to know the mountains. It was my very first taste of real mountains. It was also the first time I heard pine trees sighing mightily in the night time downdraft from the mountains. That was to become a frequent sound in New Mexico, and much sought after even today. Not only did I never forget those two trips (one of them, the first, being more memorable due to an ungodly overnight series of thunderstorms that left us totally soaked), but it led us on to more and more mountains, including Mexico (three trips) and Spain (2 visits to mountains). Then, of course, came New Mexico... (to be continued).
In movie news there are three to report. We finished the series called The Last Enemy. From 2008, its five episodes are a paranoid conspiracy theory nutcake's dream. In fact, I now wonder just how much this series influenced all the anti-vaccination fruitcakes out there. The government already controls most people through identity cards and universal surveillance, but they want to take it much further in this near future dystopian nightmare. They vaccinate a group of Afghan refugees against disease. All well and good. But they include a microscopic i.d. chip to help trace where these people end up. But things go badly wrong and the added chip causes a death from flu-like symptoms. Things go quickly downhill from there. So the lesson from this, my friends, is don't drink the government kool-aid, or take their damned vaccinations. Anyway, it's a pretty taut and dramatic series with some fine acting. However, I would have no great urge to ever rewatch it (until it all comes true).
Nell is from 1994 and was directed by Michael Apted. It stars Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson. Here is the blurb from Criterion:
Inspired by the true story of Poto and Cabengo—the American twins raised
largely in isolation who were found to have developed their own
language—this poignant drama soars thanks to an extraordinary, Academy
Award–nominated performance from Jodie Foster. When doctor Jerry Lovell
(Liam Neeson) discovers a young woman (Foster) living in seclusion in
the backwoods of North Carolina, he is intrigued by her unusual behavior
and unique pattern of speech. Together with a psychologist (Natasha
Richardson), Lovell is determined to pierce Nell’s private world and
protect her from the courts—and a life of scientific study. In a race
against time and a system bent on shattering her spirit, he and Nell
forge a connection that will transform them both.
Foster is pretty amazing in her role as the surviving twin, who learned to talk from a mother who had had a stroke. Add the Tennessee twang to that and see if you can understand anything she says. Also, the girls invented words. Finally discovered after the death of her mother, we watch Neeson and Richardson, both doctors, try to bring the girl into the 20th C. Foster's body language, added to her facial expressions and unique way of speaking, add up one pretty amazing performance. A rewarding film to watch, this one is highly recommended. Foster was nominated for the best actress award, but lost out that year to Jessica Lange.
Lastly comes another Sammo Hung kung fu film from Hong Kong. The Magnificent Butcher is from 1979 and was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping. Bogged down by endless "fighting", the kung fu is more like the Chinese circus acrobatic kind, which is at first quite amusing, but quickly wears thin. Imagine a concert pianist sitting down and zipping through some scales before he begins to play. But instead of actually playing any pieces, those scales just keep coming and coming. For two hours. Some of the humour works, but some doesn't (an alcoholic kung fu master is just a wee bit overdone). Mixing humour with horrible violence and the deaths of innocent people seems to be the way Sammo works. This might be the last of his films that will be reviewed here, though he did a horror kung fu movie that I might look at someday.
Mapman Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment