In weather news, we have had a week of March, including rain and wind and some very mild temps. However, January seems to have temporarily returned, to be followed again by March by Tuesday. And so it goes. There is no snow here; just a seasonal brownish-grey landscape. Each year the seasons become more scrambled.
Loyal readers will remember that my foot was badly injured last June, during a late night astronomy session. Four doctors looked at it. I had two rounds of x-rays, ultrasound, and two nuclear medicine tests. All that showed up was that my foot was injured and it was trying to heal. Next I saw a foot care nurse who snipped away a small piece of in-grown toenail. She said I was likely to lose the big toenail. My new GP recommended I see a podiatrist. I saw her last Wednesday, and the first thing she said was "That nail has to come off. I can do it now or you can reschedule." I chose the first option. So for the past four days I've been limping around with only 9 toe nails to my name. It might grow back; it might not grow back. The pain was quite severe after the freezing wore off on Wednesday. But the worse part came about 5 hours after the surgery when I had to remove the gauze bandage and soak the foot. Peeling off the bandage was among the worst pain I have ever had to endure. It took about an hour to get the blood soaked bandage off, pulling it up a half millimeter at a time. The foot is finally healing, but still has to be soaked twice daily. Hopefully this will be the end of the foot episode part of my life, and I can soon return to normal walking in the near future. The injury seriously affected our 2025 travel plans.
In piano news, Saturday was recital day. Six friends dropped by to hear me play, making for 8 of us inside. I am grateful to them for it was a lousy weather day with some rain, some freezing rain and some snow. My playing was messier than I would have liked, but some of the pieces went off quite splendidly. The first half was all harpsichord, with music by Scarlatti and Couperin, while the second half featured two works by Philip Glass, 3 by Scriabin, several by Bartok and a Prelude by Debussy. Today is a somewhat relaxing day and I can return to normal routines (such as blogging and doing laundry). My 3rd 'looking back at 2025' blog should be forthcoming soon.
late winter afternoon, and we managed to fit 8 people inside.
Thanks to Randy G. for the photos.
In movie news there are three to report, all of them quite short. Most recently was a mess of a picture from Godard. Oh Woe Is Me is from 1993 and is quite beloved by some critics and many fans of the French director. For me it's just painful to watch actors say and act lines that they have no idea about. Depardieu acts as if he is in a normal film, but this is not a normal film. I'm not quite sure what it is, exactly. It is watchable, though barely, and as the credits finally role and most people get up to leave, there is a coda, nearly as meaningless as the rest of the film. The film seems to be an honest attempt to film poetry, which is spouted by various male and female characters throughout the film. Some of the poetry is good and some of it isn't. Occasionally image and poetry do merge nicely, but often it's like a bad music video. Deb says the movie is deliberately abstruse, and I would have to agree. Europe has a strong history of intellectual cinema, often the kind where if you don't get it you are considered a cretin. Thus many people are afraid to say anything negative. This could be one of those films. If it takes a 1000 word essay to explain a film to me I am not likely to be too interested in watching it. Of course there is some gratuitous female nudity; this is a French film, after all. Unless you have 90 minutes to kill with nothing else in the world to do I would not recommend this film. Reading the script might be acceptable, but I would not watch this one again.
Before that came two movies from the 1930s from our DVD collection of "Comedy Classics." Swing High, Swing Low is from 1937 and features an all-star cast including Carole Lombard and Fred McMurray. This movie is somewhat painful to watch. Lombard falls in love with crumb bum musician McMurray. They meet and live in Panama, where they get married. He heads for New York and hits the big time. He more or less totally forgets about his wife, who he is supposed to send money back for her passage to New York. Instead he lives the high life and gambles much of his money away. When she shows up in New York she thinks he has been sleeping with another woman (he wasn't). Even so, he had more or less forgotten about her. When she files for divorce and intends to marry another guy he (MacMurray) falls apart and ends up in the gutter. We are supposed to suddenly feel sorry for him now, but it doesn't work well, at least with more modern audiences. All of a sudden he can't play trumpet any more. All of a sudden he can't live without her. Why not? He managed fine for many months. But when she wants a divorce, then it's skid row time. But don't worry; she still loves him and helps him get his groove back. Oh yay. It's a tough pill to swallow.
Three Broadway Girls is from 1932, and though billed as a comedy (there are moments) this is basically a film about how mean and cruel female friends can be. Based on a Broadway play ("The Greeks Had a Word For Them"), three young women try striking it rich by teaming up with rich guys. One of the girls is a queen bitch and does everything she can to spoil the fortunes of her "friends". It is quite aggravating, actually. They all make up at the end. It paved the way for better films on the same theme, including "How To Marry a Millionaire."
More very soon.
Mapman Mike
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