News Update

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.

 

The Maestro hard at work.

 

Part of the enraptured audience.  The house was cozy on a

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.

 

Showing on Mubi. 

 

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.

 

 

From our DVD collection. 

 

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."

 

From our DVD collection.  

 

More very soon.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helene

 Hurricane Helene has dispersed.  Its winds reached us this morning and continue tonight as I type.  The devastation it has caused the deep south is virtually unprecedented, and it will take weeks to assess and begin to repair the damage.  40 dead so far, and counting.  We are expecting some rain tomorrow and Sunday from it.  Needless to say that the first week of my newest astronomy session hasn't gone well.

 

The fourth week of our mountain hiking fitness program has begun.  It doesn't feel as if I will be ready to climb mountains in two weeks (three, actually, as it takes us a week to get there; we hike on the way, making it our 6th week of training).  But the program is tried and true, so I must believe.  Three high altitude hikes are planned, including the Texas state highpoint.  That first one, a tough one to be sure, is on the sixth day after our departure from the low flatlands.  It will be a major test for me, and without passing it I cannot think about hiking the big one, NM's Jicarita Peak.  So a Plan B is being formed in case Guadalupe Peak gets the better of me.  Not having hiked in the mountains for six years now, failure is a distinct possibility.

 

Deb is finishing up her Hound of the Baskerville film project, which she is using mostly as a learning experience for her newest animation software purchase. The film stars yours truly as the evil Stapleton, toying with women in the part, much like I do in real life.

 

Last night we had an incredible sunset, moving from yellow through pink, orange, and red.  Here is a photo taken near the final phase.

 

Sunset photo taken from our front yard, with the sky reflecting upon the Detroit River. 

 

In film watching news, I will begin with last weekend's pick, and move towards the most recent pick.  Twentieth Century is from 1934.  Directed by Howard Hawks it stars Carole Lombard and John Barrymore.  He plays a theatre director, and she is his latest acting discovery.  A romance blossoms, then wilts, as she finally deserts him and heads for Hollywood.  While they both just happen to be on the same train from Chicago to New York (the Twentieth Century), he gets a chance to win her back.  Barrymore is in top form, and often quite hilarious as the manipulating man that will do anything to score another Broadway success.  Lombard, not quite so successful in her role (she screams a lot), plays the young put upon actress trying to put up with Barrymore's eccentric and overbearing ways.  Somehow or other we had both missed seeing this film before.  it's worth it to watch Barrymore, almost playing himself at times.

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

Following was next, A Christopher Nolan film from 1998.  From the Mubi description:  Driven by boredom, a writer randomly shadows strangers on London’s bustling streets. What starts as fictional research becomes an unsettling journey when he’s confronted by a burglar named Cobb. Drawn into Cobb’s world of crime, the writer treads a perilous path, entangled in obsession and danger.

Stay away from bad guys.  One would think by now, after all the movies and novels that have contained this message, that people would follow that simple maxim.  But no.  Instead, they are attracted and seduced by bad guys, to their inevitable undoing.  An almost harmless hobby (follow a person once, but never again) soon turns into a crime spree, and then a deadly crime spree.  As the poor victim becomes more deeply involved with this film's version of Faust, his demise becomes more and more certain.  An original film to be sure, and in b & w.  Worth a look at the director's earlier smaller scale work.

 

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

Most recently came Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, a 1970 Spanish thriller.  Though light on murdered bodies, it is heavy on sexual sadism.  Filled with suspense movie tropes, it isn't too hard to guess what is going on, though a few surprises remain at the end.  A woman begins to think she is going crazy, as there is no evidence of the insane man, she says, who is causing her grief.  Of course some of the tricks used by the bad people trying to drive her crazy are never explained (the apartment she takes her husband and the police to is suddenly empty of all its furnishings and looks old and unused--it hadn't been rented in over a year.  No explanation of how that one was done).  The movie features the most futuristic 1970 furnishings and women's outfits for the time--it often reminded me of one of those sexy spy movies that proliferated for a time after the Bond films became successful.  If you enjoy seeing an innocent woman totally gaslighted, then you should like this film.  If not, oh well.  She does live happily ever after, though.  Sort of like a Dickens novel, I guess.  The bad guys get all the breaks, until the final minute.

Leaving Mubi Sept. 30th. 

 

I have resumed working with my Spirograph set.  Perhaps if you get lucky I will post some more images of my work next time.

 

Mapman Mike