A Birthday/Equinox Celebration and a Full Moon

I guess the big news for the week is that I am back practicing Iaido once more.  I attend class on Sunday evenings, and I was suffering from it all day Monday and Tuesday.  Hopefully things will improve over time, but my upper front thighs took quite a punishment.  Kneeling is too difficult as I am still having a problem with my big toe, the one I injured in June of 2025.  So all my katas are standing ones for now.  By Winter Solstice I hope to have at least returned to black belt level (Shodan).  After that we will have to see.

 

Another birthday and Equinox has rolled around.  Frodo, Bilbo and I are getting on in years and the big adventures are fewer and further between.  I continue to write up my notes (blog) on the most recent London journey.  I now have six of them published with perhaps three more to follow soon.  I am glad that we returned strongly to cultural doings this time.  I am really missing cultural events in Detroit these days, so London helped fill in that hunger quite a bit.

 

Last night was a bright and large full moon, our second party in five days.  We even had our first fire of the season last night.  We had a game of Akrotiri.  It is a two person game where players must excavate Minoan temples on various Greek islands.  Boats are involved and resources must be gathered, then sold for funds to excavate.  We were amidst the game last night when a tsunami struck, wiping out most of our islands and temples (a glass of ale went whooshing over the game board).  Alas for the lost temples and lost ale.

 

In film news there are three to report, one from Criterion and two from Kino.  First the Criterion  film, which is leaving Sept 30th.  Shanghai Blues is a Chinese tribute to Hollywood's 1930s screwball comedies.  From 1984 it was directed by Tsui Hark, familiar to us through several Criterion films.  It begins on the eve of the Japanese invasion of China and then jumps to 10 years later.  While much of the film is just too silly, a few gags work well.  It is a colourful film with lavish costumes and innovative lighting.  There are many scenes filled with active characters that must have required much planning and discipline from the cast and crew.  While not a film I am likely to rewatch, it was worth a sit through.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept 30th. 

 

The two Kino films were a documentary and an early version of "slow cinema."  Hieronymus Bosch: Touched By The Devil chronicles the job of Bosch scholars in the early stages of mounting a major exhibition of the artist's work in his hometown of Den Bosch.  We travel to Spain, Venice and the US as the group redefines which works were painted by the master and which by the workshop.  This is a really deep dive into some of the artist's major works and is a highly recommended film for art lovers and students.  From 2017 it was directed by Pieter Van Huystee. 

 

A Kino Lorber film, showing on their streaming channel. 

 

Goodbye, Dragon Inn is a Taiwanese film directed by Tsai Ming-liang.  Here is the blurb from the film website:  In Tsai Ming-liang’s minimalist film, the Fu-Ho Grand, a movie palace in Taipei, is closing its doors. Its valedictory screening, King Hu’s 1967 wuxia epic “Dragon Inn”, plays to a motley smattering of spectators, including two stars of Hu’s original opus, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, who watch their younger selves with tears in their eyes. 

This is a wonderfully strange oddball of a film.  Part comedy and part tragedy, we watch the final showing of a film before the theatre closes permanently.  About half a dozen people are at the screening on a rainy tropical night in Taipei.  Only two employees remain, a partially handicapped young woman who sells tickets, cleans bathrooms, washes floors and then cleans the actual theatre seating area after the show.  There is also the projectionist.  We have seen and enjoyed the film that shows in the background throughout (Dragon Inn), and two of its aged stars are in the audience, along with the adorable grandson of one of them.  In the audience is a gay tourist from Japan, a few other gay men, and a woman who cracks and eats nuts while watching and also doubles as the in-house ghost.

 

There are many long static shots, with a pair of them lasting two minutes each.  Each composition is carefully chosen, but it is the actual movie palace itself that becomes the main attraction here.  We see into its closets, hallways, foyer, main auditorium, bathrooms, projection room, stairways and even the outdoor entrance.  This is one of the better "slow cinema" films I have seen.  Recommended.

 

Now showing on the Kino channel. 

 

In gaming news we are making progress in Syberia, the original version of the first game (there is a remake).  We have advanced to Barrockstadt, the first stop along the way.  The game suffers from too many silly diversions in its attempt to create length.  Players always want to get back on the train and move along, but it takes several hours of doing tasks before that can happen.  Still, it's a fun game and Kate Walker makes a good heroine. The game runs perfectly on Steam.

 

On our way at last! 

 

University entrance at Barrockstadt. 

 

I continue to be impressed by Train Sim World 7.  I've added a new English route which I will play soon.  Today I'm in Dresden, running a high speed train towards Leipzig.  After Equinox the landscape on all routes changed to Autumn.  Pretty neat.  A new feature is live weather, where I get the actual weather where I am driving.  Here are a few recent photos of some of my journeys.

 

A rainy day, leaving from Dresden. 

 

Trans Pennine route towards Manchester.

 

A sunny day on the Great Western Railway. 

 

I won't post here any more until I complete the London blog entries.  But I will be back with more fascinating coverage of life at Lone Mtn. Homestead soon.

 

Mapman Mike