More Travel

We are just back from another 2 week visit to London and vicinity.  While I had expected to be in Vienna in October, I gladly settled for London in late August and early September.  One of the reasons for the early travel (it was still high tourist season when we arrived) was because a film of Deb's was showing at a film festival that she has always wanted to visit.  The Women Over 50 had selected a film of hers for the fifth time, so we finally made the journey to Lewes to experience the event.  We had visited The Depot Cinema informally in May.  Deb came home with a runner up certificate for She Makes a Moving Picture, which received high praise from the judges.  The festival was a full one day affair, divided into blocks.  I attended the first block, where Deb's film screened, then literally headed into the hills for some spectacular downs walking.  Deb spent the entire day at the festival.

 

Another reason for our London trip was to continue our walking segments of the London Loop and the Capital Ring.  As in May, we completed one Loop segment and two Ring segments.  While only two Ring segments remain to complete, we still have four more of the longer Loop segments to do.  We also increased our cultural doings quite a bit this time, after a very slack attempt last May.  We visited the National Gallery, Apsley House, Courthauld Gallery, Guildhall, Temple and three Roman ruins within London.  In Eynsford we visited a Roman ruin and a castle ruin, while in Lewes I visited the ruins of a large priory.  We even saw several Banksy works of art, one of them in situ still and the others on pub walls.  Of course we managed to squeeze in a few pub visits as well, even discovering a new fabulous oasis for craft real ales.  

 

It was an exhausting trip with no days off, though a few times we returned early to the hotel for a quiet evening lying on a bed, feeling our feet tingling from much walking.  We flew with Air Canada from Windsor, leaving on a Wednesday and returning exactly two weeks later.  All flights went well except our final journey home from Toronto to Windsor, which ran just over two hours late.  Our final day was a 22 hour marathon of a very long bus ride and the two flights home.  Much more about the trip will be forthcoming over the next two weeks on the Travels Abroad blog, link in upper left margin.  We managed to meet with Caroline once; our second visit was cancelled due to bad weather and some transport problems for Caroline.

 

First photo of the trip, as we set out from Highgate on segment 12 of the Capital Ring.  Sadly we never got to try the whiskey.  This billboard was on the side of the Boogaloo Pub (not visited).

 

There are hardly any red box telephones remaining in London.  These are set up as an art display outside Smithfields Market. 

 

One of our relaxing evenings at the hotel we managed to watch a Criterion movie offering via Deb's phone and tablet.  She made it magically appear on the hotel TV and we lay in bed and watched the remarkable Ashes and Diamonds, a Polish film from 1958 directed by Andrzej Wadja.  Somehow,this masterpiece had slipped past us until now.  It is a totally amazing film from start to finish, with many moments of brilliance and genius.  The plot has to do with the assassination attempt on a pro-Russian (communist) speaker coming to a small town to try and convince the workers to join the communist party.  Opposition party members first fail in their attempt, killing two innocent men instead by mistake.  The film has plenty of tension and release, as the main assassin character falls in love with a barmaid at his hotel and nearly pulls out of the attempt.  This is a riveting film from start to finish, with superb writing and excellent photography supporting the good acting.  Highly recommended!

 

Now showing on Criterion.  The poster is a tribute to the film's best shot,

an upside down Christ on the cross.  

 

Thursday night, amidst loads of laundry, we watched an oddball film, deemed a "sunshine noir" by Criterion.  Violent Saturday is a 1955 film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and several other recognizable character actors.  The action takes place in a small Arizona town (filmed in Bisbee, AZ, a place we have visited a few times).  The film is ostensibly about a bank heist to be undertaken by three out-of-town criminals, but it also partly a Douglas Sirk melodrama about various inhabitants of the mining town.  So, a film that is a cross between a soap opera and crime drama.  Results are mixed, but as it is filmed in Cinemascope with De Luxe colour, the film is always great to watch.  Mature plays the hero who stands up to the criminals, getting shot himself and rescued at the last moment by Borgnine, who plays a pitchfork wielding peace loving Amish farmer who is pushed over the edge by the criminals.  He gets no credit at the end for his heroic and life saving action.  Definitely worth watching, especially on a 50" TV screen in a small room.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

I'll be back with trip updates soon.  Check back in a few days.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Tropics Come To Amherstburg

 It's usually hot and humid here in the good old summertime, but things have certainly been taken up a notch or two this week.  Detroit was flooded badly on Friday night and Saturday, though we escaped the worst.  We ended up with just over 3" of rain for the week (so far).  Some parts of Detroit got more than twice that at one go.  Google traffic maps showed almost the entire freeway system over there flooded, and filled with stranded cars. The forecast for the rest of the week reads like the monsoon season somewhere near the equator-hot, humid, with frequent storms each day and night.  During a welcome break from rain yesterday I managed to cut the two lawns that border the house, so I am caught up for now.  But the weeds in the garden are growing a foot each week, and there are too many mosquitoes to even think about going in there.  On top of this, it is fish fly season, and while cutting the front lawn I was surrounded by about 7 billion of them.  They don't bite, but they fly into ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.  Parts of my tractor ride could have been filmed for a horror movie, only I would never have been paid enough to do it.

A flooded freeway in Detroit.  Note the kayak!

 

Another flooded freeway in Detroit yesterday.  Several main arteries are still closed.

In movie news, I combined my two choices last week into one big one, a four hour version of the 1991 Taiwanese film A Brighter Summer Day, directed by Edward Yang.  Using a lot of adolescent non-actors, the first half of the film talks about the situation in Taipei in 1961.  Street gangs roamed at night, fighting for territory as the adults around them are mostly unaware and/or unconcerned about their behaviour.  The second half of the film narrows it down more to one family.  The 2nd half seemed to be smoother and more story-centered than the first half, which quickly (for me) became quite tiresome.  This is one of the international films restored by Scorcese's film preservation society, the full version being shown in a pristine print since 2015, once thought lost.  It was unseen in any version for over 20 years.  Definitely worth watching, especially for the camera work and composition, and the way the director uses his space with his actors.  The central incident in the film, a young boy killing his girlfriend, is based on an actual event in Taiwan.  The movie came with hours of features, but so far we watched only three, including a wonderful interview with the adult version of the boy who plays the lead role.

Now showing on Criterion Channel. 

Deb's first film choice for this weekend was The Revolt of Mamie Stover, from 1956 and directed by Raoul Walsh.  It stars Jane Russell and Richard Egan, who meet as the only passengers on a freight steamer from San Francisco to Hawaii.  She has just been escorted out of town by the police, and is looking for a fresh start.  They fall in love on the boat, and even more once in Hawaii.  She works at a dance hall, on commission for how many drinks she can sell.  He is a rich man living in a mansion on a hilltop.  The time is 1941, and one fine Sunday the Japanese decide to bomb Pearl Harbor.  He enlists, and she promises to quit the racket.  They will be married after the war. However, she doesn't quit, making even more money.  When he finds out, he returns to break off the engagement.  With fine acting, a beautiful colour print filmed in Hawaii, and a strange ending, the film is not at all what people might expect from a Jane Russell film.  Definitely worth catching.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

A few moments ago I was talking about how our house and yard are being overgrown in a serious way.  Though this happens every summer, it is much worse this year.  A warm, wet spring got things going early, and though we had control until about mid-May, we have firmly lost control again until the autumn.  We have a tree service coming Monday to see about removing some fast, pesky growing trees.  But overall, things are much like a jungle around here.  Somehow Ruisdael seems to capture the mood nicely in today's work of art from the DIA, another fine landscape print by the master.  Not everyone in his day could afford to purchase an original oil painting, but most modestly-incomed people could afford to buy a print or two. Today, not many can even afford to buy one of his prints.  There is some slight irony here, I'm sure.  And now you have an idea of what our yard looks like.

 

Cottage On The Summit Of The Hill, 17th C. Jacob van Ruisdael, Dutch, 1628 or 29-1682.  Etching and drypoint printed in black ink on laid paper, 8" x 11".  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

Detail of left side.

 

Detail of right side.

Detail of the cottage. 

 

I will hopefully return at the end of the month with the monthly reading report.  Please come back often. 

Mapman Mike