There Be Flowers

Our snowdrops have emerged, and the crocuses are shoosting (to quote Lisa Douglas) upwards.  Spring is springing.  Love is in the air, and the birds begin to sing differently now.  Reading poetry suddenly seems like a great idea.  Sunday waffles taste even better today, though a crappy movie is still a crappy movie.  More on that later.

We've had six clear nights so far this astronomy session.  I managed to observe during three of them; the others were unusable due to wind speed.  However, my last outing was on the chilly side of things.  When I arrived to set up, the temp was 18 F.  Much warmer at home, near the river and in towns, but out in the middle of a damp farmer's field, well...  No wind, but it was still mighty cold air entering my lungs.  When I left, it was 16 F.  The main problem in those kinds of temps is fingers; how to write with three pairs of gloves on, for example.  Of course I use hand warmers, too, but I need some flexibility in changing eyepieces and scribbling notes.  My notes from that Friday night are a tad difficult to read.  Anyway, I lasted nearly 3 hours in the arctic chilliness, but I had an amazing time with winter star clusters and nebulae, and many colourful binary and triple star systems.  My usual threshold is 25 F; below that I stay home.  But spring madness drove me forth on that night.

Our upcoming road trip (still quite a while away) will not include New Mexico.  At first I was puzzled by this; why was I not yearning to get back to the desert?  Usually when March is approaching I begin to smell the dust and cacti, and feel the spring winds blowing the hair right off my head.  But not this year.  Why not?  The desert is a place for us to run to when things are confusing and getting too wild and out of control.  Like in our previous life as teachers.  Or when we were heavy duty travelers, as before the pandemic.  Or even when we made weekly trips to Detroit, and sometimes more often than that.  When we are surrounded by lots of people for long periods of time, then we feel the need to escape to the solitude and silence of the NM desert and mountains.  We rarely encounter other people when we are out in the landscape there, and we return filled with a new kind of resilience; we feel a buffer between us and the world for a time.  But since we are living a rather spartan and hermetic existence these days, there is no great need to escape anything.  We are still loving our mostly stay-at-home lifestyle, and don't even feel strong urges to cross over to Detroit.  However, I do feel it is time for the node to expand, and so a week or so of driving around (not too far from home) and exploring new places is in order.  Some new and/or seldom visited art museums and new archeological sites await us.  When the urge to visit NM arises, it will be swiftly followed up.

Next topic is a landscape painting from the DIA, an absolute favourite of ours.  Hercules Seghers' paintings are rarer than Bruegel's, and Detroit's painting is only attributed to the master (there are not enough figures in the painting, so some do not accept it as being by him).  It's as close to a Bruegel landscape painting as you can get, and reminds me a bit of the one in San Diego.  The Detroit painting releases its full charm when the gallery is very empty and quiet.  The picture is like a scene from the background of a Bruegel painting, a small detail made large.

Detail of left side.

Detail of right side.

River Landscape, 17th C, attrib. to Hercules Seghers (1589-1640).  Dutch.  Oil on canvas; 16" x 25" unframed.  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.  

 

Turning now to film viewing news, there are several to report.  I ended up choosing two shorter films as my main weekly selection.  The first one was La Ricotta, a 35 minute film from 1963 directed by Pasolini.  In it, Orson Welles is directing a film about the crucifixion.  A very unique look at a director's job, with some very funny moments, with just as many head shaking ones.  Of course Pasolini was charged with offending religion, and had to pay a fine to avoid jail.  I followed up with A Well Spent Life, a 44 minute film from 1971 directed by Les Blank.  Mance Lipscomb was an aging blues singer and guitarist in the deep south of Texas, and this documentary film listens to his words of wisdom and his music, and explores his surroundings.  In the old style doc, it is still fun to watch.  The deep south does not get any deeper than this.  Mance died in 1976.

A Scene from "La Ricotta."  Leaving Mubi soon.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

My leaving Criterion choice for last week was another film by French director Claude Sautet.  Max and the Junkmen is from 1971, and tells the story of an unusual police inspector trying to trap a gang of petty thieves in a bank heist.  He is frustrated because he cannot catch a professional gang, so he thinks that by setting up some amateurs for failure he can frighten the pros.  What is unusual about this cop is that he has a private income from his parents, who own a vineyard.  And apparently no other case load.  In the end, he traps himself as much as he traps the criminals.  Sautet's films seem to be very unusual ways to tell traditional stories, and are quite watchable.  Both recently viewed films have had surprise endings, too.  Romy Schneider plays an unusual prostitute, looking gorgeous in every scene.

Leaving Criterion Feb. 28th. 

 

Deb's main film pic for the weekend is called Impromtu, from 1991.  It stars some big names, and purports to be about Georges Sand, Frans Liszt, Chopin, and Delacroix.  Judy Davis plays a very self possessed Georges, and Hugh Grant is wonderful as a sickly and effeminate Chopin.  There is very little about Sand or her novels, but she wears some great suits, and her haircut is perfect, too.  There is much great music, mostly by Chopin, incredible sets and costumes all around, and lots of bustling about and quick repartee.  But all in all the film is quite empty, more like what an aristocrat might think it was like to be such artists.  Lovely to look at and at times to listen to, it is not something that music, literature, or art students must see.

 

 

Now showing on the Roku Channel. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

Del Toro Again

Del Toro has the means and ways to make possibly the most atmospheric and wonderful films ever conceived.  Watching a recent gothic horror film by the director, it has become obvious that Del Toro is obsessed with graphic violence.  The kind that a male teenager might get huge kicks from, and even laugh at as it happens on screen.  Del Toro's type of graphic violence is not out of place in a novel, perhaps, where one can skim through parts if desired, or simply try not to picture things too graphically.  Even in comics his style of violence could be accepted, as we are aware of the fact that this isn't real.  But when a film maker of Del Toro's creativity and magnitude hooks you into a movie, you do believe it's real.  The violence is so sudden and so shocking that it literally ruins the entire picture.  All the fabulous work he has done on sets, costumes, lighting, etc. are immediately thrown away.  What are you going to remember about the film?  Guess.  Anyway, Crimson Peak is mostly a traditional gothic tale, with a familiar, almost tired plot.  There are some very scary ghost scenes, however.  Awesome visuals, which make you forget how dumb the story is.  And then there is the over the top violence.  I hope someday Del Toro overcomes his teenage violence fantasies, and makes at least one movie before he dies that shows off his talents in a positive light.  I'd be interested in what percentage of viewers were entertained by seeing a man's head smashed repeatedly and graphically into the side of a bathroom sink, with all the accompanying blood and broken head.  Or the abysmal climax, with at least five stabbings, all very graphic and over the top.  And the two female leads have at one another with knives, a cleaver, and a shovel.  Stupidity marches on.

Now streaming on AMC+ 

 

And now for something completely different.  Deb's leaving choice last weekend was called The Balcony, a filming of a Jean Genet play that stars Peter Falk (who is pretty good) and Shelly Winters (who is awful).  Winters runs a fantasy island type of house of pleasure in a vast building.  She has many girls who work for her, and the customers (all male) pay highly for their services.  They get to act out their fantasies.  In this case there are three: one man wants to be a bishop, another a general, and a third a judge.  Outside the building the world is descending into chaos, with street battles and bombs.  Falk plays the police chief who is trying to take over everything.  Mostly quite silly now, there are several funny moments that keep up interest.  Pretty avante garde for 1963 cinema.  The language from the 1957 play was toned down considerably.  Worth a look for the curious.

 

Leaving Criterion August 31st.

 

For my main choice of the week I selected two shorter films by Les Blank from the early 70s.  They are called Dry Wood, and Hot Pepper.  Both deal with Black Creole culture in Louisiana.  The better film is Hot Pepper, which follows Clifton Chenier around to some of his gigs.  His incredible virtuosity on the accordion mixes jazz, blues, and zydeco.  The film is much more focused than the first one, which shows a variety of scenes, some very unpleasant to watch, of the rural community doing what they do.  But the Chenier film has some wonderful music, really stunning photography, and some random scenes with music in the background worth their weight in gold.  There was also a more recent short documentary to watch about making the two films.  Criterion is the only place to see stuff like this, especially in excellent prints.

The better of two Les Blank films leaving Criterion August 31st. 

 

In local news, Deb's mom Lois took a fall in her room.  She needed to have an x-ray done on her arm.  So Deb had to drive to Kingsville (30'), then follow the ambulance to Windsor (35'), stay until the x-ray happened (about 3 hours), drive back to Kingsville for the paperwork and to get her mom comfortable, then drive back home.  Not the end of her driving.  The arm was fractured, and Lois needed to return to Windsor next day at 6 am.  So Deb was up at 4:40 am, driving back to Windsor to meet her mom.  When her sling was on (they aren't going to use a cast), Deb drove back to Kingsville (Lois had transport separately arranged for her in her wheel chair), and then finally home.  Lois is in some pain, but she has pills for that.  Her arm is immobilized for three weeks, when she has to return to Windsor.  Deb is pretty sick of driving. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Burdensome Dreams

I chose Les Blank's Burden Of Dreams to watch this week on the Criterion Channel.  Having seen Fitzcarraldo twice so far, I had always wanted to see this film.  It is a documentary on some of the goings on during the filming of the Amazon jungle film by Werner Herzog, who was nearly driven mad by the ordeal.  No wonder.  It came with three other shorter films, likely made for the DVD release in 2005.  Les Blank returns with a 38 minute film in which he interviews Herzog about Fitzcarraldo, his 1982 epic film, again in 2005.  This little film is called Dreams and Burdens.  It puts a nice cap on the proceedings.  Then came 6 minutes of footage left out of Burden of Dreams, all to do with Klaus Kinski.  In the first clip, Kinski is having one of his raging tantrums, this time against the production manager for the bad food he is serving.  The next clip shows a smiling Kinski, as a butterfly takes to him and will not leave him.  It flies to his face, his shoulder, his head, his finger, and a smiling, relaxed, and nature-loving Klaus greatly enjoys the attention.  Lastly came another short film by Les Blank, called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.  We learn why he eats his shoe, and we watch him prepare, cook, and eat it.  I love the man even more now.

Though we are two days from the official beginning of Autumn, the heat is still on.  We broiled and roasted today on our Detroit visit.  The sun was merciless, too.  It's still a very fun city, but on every visit it becomes more and more apparent that the Q-Line streetcar system is an embarrassment to the city, and to public transport in general.  Less said the better.  We poked around the New Centre area first, and just by chance found a relatively new vegan restaurant called "The Kitchen."  We walked in and did our usual ask for the menu, to see if anything was vegan.  "Everything is vegan," said the wait person.  That was different.  Right now it is only open for lunch weekdays, 11-2.  The chef does a lot of private events, and is just starting to break into the restaurant scene.  The place was busy, and is in an area of Detroit that had really fallen down.  It seems to be slowly picking up, though.

Tonight is the official beginning of the newest astronomy sessions.  It will be cloudy tonight, Saturday, and Sunday, so far.  The three previous nights were perfect.  Sigh.

Mapman Mike

Mapman Mike