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 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

 The wildfire smoke has peaked in our area over the last few days, and breathing the air has become "dangerous."  It's difficult to see across the river, and the smell of burning is everywhere.  For several hours over the last few days, Detroit and Chicago had the worst air quality in the world.  So the world is burning.  Big deal.  I think I'll stop at McDonalds and get something to eat (said no one at Lone Mtn. Homestead).  Despite the bad air, Detroit carried on with its annual major fireworks display.  That should help things improve.

We had to visit Deb's lawyer's office today in Kingsville.  The court probate certificate arrived, and next step is to get the money from Lois' estate transferred to a central holding area, where it will be distributed among her three daughters, Deb being one.  It is not a very large estate, but a sizable chunk of money will find its way into our bank account in a few weeks time.

In medical news, Deb's two shots she received to alleviate her hip pains seem to have worked rather well.  She will report to physio next week.  And I have attended two Iaido classes.  Techniques are slowly coming back to me.  Being in good physical shape has eased my transition also, as I have not suffered any undue aches and pains as a result of cutting with the sword again.

In anticipation of the arrival of the new piano, we are redoing the flooring in the music room.  That means moving filing cabinet and bookshelf, both major undertakings, ripping up the old carpet, getting the basic floor ready for peel and stick tile, and doing a bit of trim and baseboard painting.  At some point the piano will have to be moved, too, to get at the strip of carpet underneath.  The new tiles will arrived in less than two weeks.  They should lay down easily in one go; then we can move everything back where it goes.  Then the old piano will go out, and the new one in.  I won't even talk about our outdoor project right now, except to say that the removal of vast amounts of poison ivy is underway, next to the garage and other areas.

In movie news, it is my film festival at the moment, and we have seen three out of four selected films.  All were selected from the Sight and Sound Top 100 list, the ones available for view on the Criterion Channel.  First up was a short film by Chris Marker.  La Jetee is tied for 67th place in the list.  It is not really a film, but a narrated series of still images.  It is a haunting sf story about a man from a future wartime living in Paris.  He is puzzled and haunted by the vision of a woman and tries to track her down.  He is being used for experiments in time travel.  Quite a good film and worth more than one viewing.  It seems to have influenced, among other films, the recent Last and First Men we saw.  Recommended.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Also tied for 67th place is a short feature film from 2000 by Agnes Varda called The Gleaners and I.  It is a very original documentary picture about people who glean fields and orchards after the harvest.  But it expands on this theme, even following people who glean at outdoor markets, and who rummage in trash bins for food.  She uses Millet's famous painting as a goalpost, and goes from there.  Highly watchable and a totally fascinating film making.  Recommended.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Then came our second viewing of Godard's Contempt, from 1963 and tied for 54th place.  If you like to see Brigitte Bardot's bare bottom you might enjoy this picture.  If you realize that she has a fairly ordinary bottom, a somewhat tired looking face, large but empty eyes, and bleached hair, you may not enjoy the film so much.  She is in most of the scenes, so despite what critics might say the film is about, it's about getting Bardot on camera as much as possible.  The music is often overbearing, telling us to be sad and thoughtful often.  Give me Monica Vitti any day, and Nino Rota (and Marcello).  The film has two things going for it, though.  The first is that Fritz Lang is in it, playing the part of a film director filming The Odyssey.  The second thing is the location shots once the crew reaches Capri.  Wow!

 

Now showing on Criterion.

Coming soon!  June reading summary!  Stay tuned for this exciting event!

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

The Criterion Channel

At present we have a work around, and, after 3 frustrating days, we finally got to watch our first movie on the new streaming service.  I got first pick; Deb chooses the next one.  Once each month we will have a day long film festival.  Tonight I chose 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, directed by Jean Luc Godard.  This was a test of our set up, which is somewhat involved, as well as the streaming quality.  Finally, everything worked like a charm!

The print was excellent, the subtitles easy to read, and the film was pretty damn interesting!

 We watched this Godard film tonight, on the Criterion Channel. 

Filmed in 1967 and released in 1967, it is an avant garde film that stands up to time really well.  Juliette lives in a modern high rise development in the suburbs of Paris, with her husband and two children.  There is no story, but the camera follows Juliette from evening to evening, through her day working as a prostitute in Paris, and back home again that evening.  Interwoven into the collage is the American war in Vietnam, consumerism, and a lot of existentialism.  I found it all quite refreshing, as it has been a while since I have seen films by this director, and have never seen this one before.

The cinematography is really well done, it's in vivid colour and CinemaScope wide screen format, and though the movie makes little sense, that is one of its main points; much of the time our lives do not much make sense, either.  The Vietnam war did not make much sense, and neither did the suburban dream of those planning those truly ugly living conditions outside of Paris.  Here is a short and decent essay about the movie, from the Criterion Collection website.   

Favourite moments for me were listening to Juliette's son reading his homework essay, on why girls and boys should try to get along; listening to children off camera talk about their playground and swings having been taken away, leaving them with nothing to do, and the amazing shots looking down into a cup of black coffee. 

In other exciting news, we had our house exterior power washed today!  It was somewhat overdue for a good bath.  Things look pretty good! 

Mapman Mike