June Ramblings

It's been sunny.  Very very sunny.  No serious rain here in a few weeks now, and except for the chance of severe storms later today, the outlook for a good, steady all day rain is zero.  Poor farmers.  Last year most of them couldn't plant because the fields were too flooded.  This year the planting goes perfectly, but then...

My left thumb is giving me grief again, injured during the build up to last season's concert.  If I am really careful I can get through a practice without any trouble.  But I must have overdone it yesterday, for it is very painful today.  So no morning practice, and the afternoon one will be very light, if at all.  We may be hiding in the basement, if storm predictions come true.  They sound really bad.

I have just returned from my weekly shopping expedition.  It was a two-stop run today, first for birdseed, and then on to the grocery store for food, and 6 cans of heavenly dark beer.  Imagine, my local A'burg grocery store has London pride and London Porter, from Fullers in London!  The trip was uneventful; it wasn't very busy anywhere i went, except the roads.

Earlier in the week we played a full round of Teotihuacan, City of the Dead, a vast and involving board game that has become our favourite game.  Set up takes about 30 minutes, and play lasts about two hours.  We played on Saturday evening, then continued on Sunday, then finally finished it on Monday.  It was the first time we played with the full rules, instead of starter rules.  Later this week comes the next game in our MECCG tournament.  We haven't played in a while, but the decks are ready to go.  In computer gaming news, we have finished 4/5 parts of Kentucky Route 0, and hope to continue on again to finish it.  The game is so good, and it is replayable, since the conversation trees chosen by the player are nearly infinite.  The graphics and sombre mood make the game very unique and mesmerizing.  And I am still plugging along with Return To Mysterious Island.  I am almost ready to board the Nautilus!

Deb's recent movie choice was called Where Is My Friend's House?  It is an Iranian film from 1987, and chronicles the nightmarish adventure of a small boy trying to return his schoolmate's notebook, which he has mistakenly grabbed.  Viewers will never forget his little face, as he embarks on his epic journey to the next village, a journey fully as eventful as the quest for the Holy Grail.  Most of the film, at least the first hour, is heartbreaking, as this child is put through the wringer by a village of uncaring adults, most of whom don't even hear him talking to them.  But the final half hour makes up for the rest, as the boy is befriended by an old man who attempts to help him.  My favourite kind of film is one that really gets inside an exotic place, a place which outsiders would never see, and really makes that place worth visiting and truly memorable.  Highly recommended, if you can sit through the first hour of near torture.

 Scene from the last section of the film.  

A memorable, iconic scene from the film.

Mapman Mike

Syberia 3, Teotihuacan, and Fred and Ginger

First, the rain.  Since Thursday afternoon, we had 4" of rain through Sunday night.  That's a lot of rain, especially for an area already suffering from record high water levels in the surrounding lakes and rivers.  More is expected tomorrow, and possibly Wednesday.  What to do with it all.

For the past several weeks I have been playing Syberia 3, a game for PC, off and on in the evenings.  It's a rather tedious game, and not very special.  I am playing it only out of loyalty to the first two games in the series.  Anyway, as per usual, when I turned on the game to play, Steam downloaded an update.  Then, when the game finally loaded, all my progress was erased.  No saved games, no nothing.  Weeks and weeks of work down the tube, with no desire to start all over again.  I downloaded some saved games from the web, but so far they refuse to load.  Harrumph (and under my breath, many more worse words).

We finally sat down and played a mostly full round of our newest board game, called Teotihuacan.  It is certainly one of the better board games we now own.  It is an evening's commitment to set up the board and play, but it is a lot of fun, and as the game board changes with each new game, no sure fire strategy will help you win the next game.  And you get to build a pyramid, and decorate it.  How cool is that?  I think Tokaido Road and this game are our two favourites.  Now that the basement had been reassembled, I have room to store and display all of our board games.  Some have never been played yet.

Deb's weekend movie pick was Swing Time, starring Fred and Ginger.  From 1936, and directed by George Stevens, this b & w classic has some superb dancing and some memorable songs, including "The Way You Look Tonight," and "A Fine Romance," written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields.  Great dance numbers (and music) include "Never Gonna Dance," and Fred's black face tribute to Bill "Bojangle" Robinson.  Some great hoofin'.  The plot, of course, is virtually non-existent. 

 Showing on the Criterion Channel until the end of August. 

And now we return to our regular programming, featuring another fine landscape painting from the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Bernardo Bellotto

View of the Tiber in Rome with the Castel Sant'Angelo, 1743 or 1744

oil on canvas, 34" x 48", unframed. 

The museum did a complete reorganization several years ago, something which I think destroyed the overall layout and made finding any specific painting much more difficult.  One of the newer spaces is called The Grand Tour," and purports to show how Italy was on everyone's grand tour in the 18th Century, and the artists who did souvenir type works of art.  Canaletto, Guardi, Panini, robert, and Bellotto are some of these artists, and thanks to them we have some rather good impressions of Rome, Venice, and other cities because of their painstaking renditions for rich tourists to carry home.  This particular painting has always been a favourite of mine, and it is large enough to get in close and observe all of the wonderful details of the time.

Detail of the bridge.

 Detail of far left side.

Detail of St. Peter's dome.

Detail of the Castel, which once served as Hadrian's tomb.

Castel, further detail.

Paintings like this hang in every great museum of the world, and are always worth stopping to look at more closely.  This one has an evening twilight colour that cannot be captured in a photo, but is magical and difficult to describe in person.

I had my first piano lesson this afternoon with Philip Adamson, bringing him my newest program.  We got to work on the Bach Prelude and Fugue, and the Schubert Impromptu in C Minor.  Very helpful.  I will return in a few weeks for help with the Haydn Sonata and the Bartok Allegro Barbaro.  I will not likely make my August memorization goals.  For every three notes I stick into my head, two of them pop out the other side.  I'll get there, but it will take more time.

Mapman Mike

Black Jack, a Film by Ken Loach

We are one day away from completing our 28-day walking program, the one we always use to go from a zero activity level (following Deb's surgery, and a very hot early July), to a basic level of walking fitness.  Today we undertook a 90 minute urban hike in Windsor.  It was sunny, pretty warm, (about 83 F) and very humid.  We stopped for lunch halfway through at Pause Cafe, a place with more and more vegan options every time we go.  He makes soup from very old recipes, and today he had one of our favourites, a cold soup from almonds from a recipe from Spain.  It is so delicious, and our bodies were ready for a cold soup today.  His gazpacho is also fearsomely good, but today it was almond soup.  We also split a large salad plate with tofu, cucumber, onions, kidney beans, and other delicious things.  By the time we were ready to leave, we were prepared for the long walk back to our vehicle, left way uptown.

Deb continues to have films shown on virtually every weekend this summer, and on into September.  We are two weeks away from attending the festival in Cincinnati, where three of her films will be screened.  One of them is nominated for an award.

Our listening program is in progress, and we have completed 70 of Haydn's symphonies, and 70 opus of both Brahms and Britten.  Next up is Symphony #71 by Haydn.

Deb's weekend movie choice was an odd little children's film from 1979, just released on the Criterion channel.  Called "Black Jack," the film is difficult to watch without subtitles (there were none).  The soft spoken Yorkshire accents are difficult enough, but the sound miking was less than good as well.   Shot on 16 mm film, it is still engaging, and the mostly outdoor settings and the costumes were absolutely perfect.  A very large man escapes death on the gallows by choking down a metal spoon before he is hung.  He awakens in his coffin, in a house where an old woman sells the bodies of such men to the local medical society.  The time is 1750, and the setting is Yorkshire. 

In his escape he kidnaps a young boy, and they disappear quickly into the countryside.  Here they encounter Belle, a young girl who is being delivered to a mad house.  When her carriage breaks down she escapes, and she and the boy (Tolly) link up and become friends.  The girl quickly loses her madness, and the two of them hook up with a "doctor" and his travelling medicine show.  From a novel by Leon Garfield, the film is worth a second viewing, perhaps after the novel has been read I have ordered a copy of the book).

 A wonderful little film from 1979, but pretty hard to understand the dialogue. 

On our trip to Detroit last Thursday we went downtown, spending some money at Vault of Midnight, a game and comic store.  I bought the complete comic of The Watchmen by Alan Moore.  The novel contains all 12 comics, as well as written fiction by the author that goes along with it.  I will read one complete comic each time I finish up a book on my Avon/Equinox list, so it will take me 12 books to complete the comic.  I'm currently reading a volume of 21 stories by Silverberg, which is nearly 400 pages long.  We also bought a new board game, called Teotihuacan: City of Gods.  It has an enormous and very attractive playing board, as well as about five thousand small pieces needed to play.  So far I have set up the board so it is ready for two players to play.  That took me two days!  We might get started tonight.

 The box.

 The game board.  For 1-4 players. 

Some possible heavy rain is predicted overnight.  Despite flooding still everywhere around us, mostly due to the high lake levels from the winter snow melt (record setting), we badly need some rain.  Just not 3", please.  Half an inch or so would be nice.

Mapman Mike