A Brief Catching Up

It was a doozy of a cold, and I still have that cotton in my brain feeling two weeks later.  My last cold was in December 2018, after returning from a sleepless but fun week in Vienna.  Deb's last cold was literally decades ago.  Her overcharged immune system has protected her till now.  She is a few days behind me in her recovery, but doing well.  We have both been sleeping a lot.  Whenever I try to read, I fall asleep, so along with the travelling we did my October reading list will be on the short side.  Deb's wrist seems to be healing well, with 3 weeks left to wear the cast.  And her lung is slowly healing, too, with far fewer painful episodes.  All will be well again someday soon.

 

We were away for 8 days instead of 17, so the piano program didn't suffer too much.  I did light practice during the worst of my cold.  Things are still a bit wobbly, but memorization of the Beethoven proceeds apace.  I resumed some light physical exercise a week ago, including a few outdoor walks, some yard work, and cutting the grass.  So only 50 more weeks until I get another chance at hiking in New Mexico.  5 of those 8 days we had were lots of fun; the last 3 not so much.

 

I have been working on the trip blog, and have the Cincinnati portion published.  Look on the American Midwest blog link, upper left on this page.  I am currently working on the second part, and might publish it by tomorrow.  I did get some really good photos, even in Oklahoma.  I haven't printed any yet, but soon.  

 

In film news, some really good ones on which to report.  But first, Deb's SF film is being shown this weekend in Manchester at their incredible SF festival.  Her film was one of only 6 chosen from a thousand entries that will be shown during the main event, and is in competition.  This looks like such a fun event, and we would love to attend, perhaps next year.

 

Mandalay is from 1934, and directed by Michael Curtiz.  Quite a good picture, when a woman dumped by her criminal lover has to fend for herself, taking an unpleasant job as a night club hostess in SE Asia.  She meets an alcoholic doctor and they seem to hit it off, until lover boy returns, expecting the woman to help him out.  Kay Francis is a knockout beauty in this short feature.

 

Leaving Criterion Oct. 31st. 

 

The Coconuts is from 1929, and is the first appearance on screen of the Marx Brothers.  While they are very funny, and their routines are well timed (the auction scene is one of their funniest), the movie screeches to a halt far too many times for some very lame songs, sung very lamely by others.  Harpo's harp solo, on the other hand, is very good, as is Chico's piano solo.  Fast forward during the other songs and all will be well.

Leaving Criterion Oct. 31st. 

 

Genghis Cohn is one of dozens of BBC films and filmed plays that were released as a multi-season anthology series called Screen Two.  Prime seems to have picked up a half dozen or so of these films.  This one is exceptionally good.  From 1994, it features a Jewish comedian who is murdered by the Nazis in a mass killing of Jews during the war.  His ghost comes back to haunt the commandant in charge of the killings, until he gets his sweet revenge.  This could easily have been a horror story, or a really heavy drama.  But it is actually more of a comedy!  And it has some very funny moments, too.  A real sleeper gem, and worth seeing more than once. 

 

Now showing on Prime. 

 

Another Screen Two BBC presentation on Prime was called Small Faces, from 1996.  It takes place in Glasgow in 1968, with a young boy growing up amidst the violence and despair of life in a poor inner city.  It was well acted, but the story it told could have happened anywhere, including Milan or St. Louis.  Not really that memorable, unless, perhaps, viewers grew up in Glasgow in 1968.

Now showing on Prime. 

 

Legend of the Red Dragon is a Chinese kung fu film from 2002.  Despite the violence, it is mostly a comedy, as a small team of do gooders, led by Jet Li, takes on the evil folk in charge of the country.  More a display of insane acrobatics than martial arts, it also features an invincible bad guy, who literally cannot be stopped.  He drives an all-silver steam powered racing car!  This one also features a group of young boys, including the hero's son.  Five of the boys have part of a treasure map tattooed on their backs, which the bad guys are after.  A very silly way to spend two hours.

 

Starring Jet Li, and showing on Prime. 

 

Next came a mind bending SF film, which seems to really be a play that was filmed.  Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth is from 2007.  From the description on Prime: An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he has a longer and stranger past than they can imagine.  Well scripted and very well acted, this is one of those rare, highly intelligent scripts that tell truths most people do not wish to hear about.  The expose of Christian religion (having all been taken from earlier mythologies from other parts of the world) could have been written by Joseph Campbell.  This is a very highly recommended film, with a few surprises at the very end.  There is a sequel which it seems it might be better to avoid.  We'll see.

Now showing on Prime. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

Catch-up Time

Hello to all my readers in Singapore!  There are either a lot of you, or someone there is checking out the site a whole lot of times.  My tracking allows me to see how many hits from different countries I get, and international readers from all over the world are my main visitors.  For some reason....

It's been a very busy time of late here at the Homestead, and it will only get busier.  Thankfully, no rushing was involved.  To begin with, I had three clear nights last week, involving lots of driving.  Only one night was hampered by smoke from western fires. The nights at the windmill site are very quiet and calm, and the skies seem to be at the very edge of the Windsor/Detroit light dome.  Ideally, I would drive about 5 miles further east.  But it's already too far.  Last Saturday evening was also the most recent get together of our piano performance group.  All seven full time members attended.  They include three busy M.D.s, and four music majors.  Paula and I played a Gershwin duet, and she also played a solo.  But I had to leave before she played (and before I could play my solo), as it was a clear night and I needed a bit of light to set up my gear.  There were three Debussy pieces on the program, include a wonderful performance of "Fireworks," from Preludes Book 2, by Jim from Chatham.  There was also some Mozart (2nd and 3rd mov't of the A minor sonata), and Dr. L. played the first movement of the Appassionata by Beethoven (from memory!).  We were at Dr. B's home, playing on a 6' Yamaha.  The next get together is here at the Homestead, in September.  A few people are anxious to try the Avant-Grand.  We'll see how that goes.

I have switched Iaido nights from Mondays to Sundays.  The intense mountain hiking training program begins this coming Friday, and Saturdays and Mondays will see us drive into Windsor to hike the hills at Malden Hill Park.  I did not want to have to drive back for Iaido on Monday evenings, so I switched over to Sunday for Iaido.  This coming Sunday is cutting practice at a private home, so there will be no regular class.  Sunday mountain hiking training sessions are done at home, as are Friday ones.  Thursday is a rest day.  Wednesday will be cross-training, likely either yard work or biking.  Tuesdays are for long hikes.  Some of these can be done near here, on the rails to trails paths.  So with the exercise program and Iaido, I will be driving at least 3X a week to Windsor.  It is not my favourite drive, and gas prices are very high.  And in two weeks, astronomy nights will rear their head once again, really complicating things.

We seem to have scored a downtown hotel in Cincinnati for the late Sept. film festival there, for two nights.  Deb's film will be shown Saturday afternoon.  We will be there from Friday afternoon through Sunday noon hour.  When we leave Cinci we will be heading directly west for our road trip and hiking adventure, our first since 2018.  We will be hiking in Oklahoma, twice in Texas, and twice in New Mexico.  Two of the hikes will be among the biggest I have ever undertaken, so I am hoping the old body holds up during the training weeks ahead.  If I survive the training, I should have a good chance of doing the hikes.  The clock is ticking rapidly on my old, worn out body.

Turning to film, there are only 2 to report.  My main selection for last week was Once Upon A Time In China, from 1991.  It's a Hong Kong kung fu special, with more acrobatics per square minute of film than in any other one could imagine.  Jet Li stars as the master of a kung fu shcool, trying to deal with a rival gang, as well as the colonists, mostly British and Americans.  Of course the whites are the bad guys, but there are plenty of Chinese bad guys, too.  Despite its humour and silly situations and almost non-stop fighting, it manages to seriously get across how the Chinese were treated by the whites at the time, both in China and abroad.  Lured to America, where they were told gold could be found everywhere, the often uneducated peasants ended up with short lives ending in deep poverty and misery.  There are something like five of these films in the series, but if we do watch others there will a long time period between viewings.  The film was a bit over the top.

Now showing on Criterion.  This is part 1 of five, with many extras. 

Deb's weekend leaving choice was Six Degrees of Separation, starring Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing, and Will Smith.  It's a talky tale of a disturbed young black man who forces himself upon a rich white couple by pretending he was mugged.  He claims to be the son of Sidney Poitier, and is so convincing that they fall for it.  Remember, this is long before e-mail and telephone scams that made us (well, most of us) much more cynical about trusting human nature.  Though not a bad film, it goes on far too long.  The acting is okay, but things are way overdone between the parents and their children away at college.  The wife's epiphany at the end is believable, as is the ending itself.  Directed by Fred Schepisi, the film dates from 1993, and is an adaptation of the play by John Guare.

Leaving Criterion August 31st. 

Mapman Mike