Winter's Arrival, Sort Of

With the arrival of meteorological winter on December 1st we enter the dark days.  London UK is dark shortly after 4 pm, and we are dark shortly after 5 pm.  It would appear that next year this time we will be remaining on daylight savings time, which will lengthen the afternoons, but drastically shorten the mornings.  Apparently this has been attempted before in the USA and other countries, but the dark mornings became too hazardous for pedestrians, especially school children, and the move was rescinded.  So the experiment will be repeated, no doubt with similar results.

As I blog this morning the sun is shining brightly, but it is cold out there.  Our wood stove is burning merrily and the house feels toasty.  We now have three main heat sources--the furnace, the wood stove, and the fireplace.  The first two depend on electricity, however.  But we have a generator just in case, which runs the stove as long as the gasoline lasts.  We originally bought the stove after a bad ice storm several years ago.  There is no way to connect the furnace to the generator when the power is out, so we depended on the fireplace that time.  Next time, providing we can start the generator (it was overhauled last summer), we will be able to stay warm, and to heat water.

I say "next time", as I know that ice storms will become more common, rather than the old fashioned snow storms we now rarely get.  As our temperatures rise ever so slowly over time, we get more and more rain in winter, and less and less snow.  And a bit more of the in between stuff, like ice pellets.  This summer past we also bought a solar panel charger, which will charge our phones and other smaller electrical devices.  The days after a big storm are usually clear and cold here, so we should have access to sunlight.  Hopefully we will never have to try out all these ways of keeping warm, but it's good to know we are as ready as can be.

Every Sunday morning we have breakfast in the listening/living room, and select a different Bach cantata to play as we eat our servings of either pancakes/waffles/French toast.  We are now in the latter half of his 1724 pieces, and they are getting richer, bolder, and ever more beautiful.  It has been a lot of fun hearing the progress of both Bach and Beethoven as composers, as we listened to works from their youth and are now reaching their stages of full maturity.  It is a very engaging and magnificent journey! 

In viewing news, we have finally watched all 8 episodes of Wheel of Time, season one.  Based on what we have seen, there will likely not be a season two for us.  The show is very much a Tolkien ripoff, as well as 'borrowing' hunks of material from Guy Gavriel Kay.  Though so many people die in this series (including all the males of a major city), not one main character dies.  One does die, but is revived miraculously at the end, as other women stay pretty much dead around her.  The story is manipulative and tedious, basically high school stuff, though the settings, costumes, and effects are really quite good.  It is done, and we can at last move on.

Pierre Etaix's first colour feature was Le Grand Amour from 1969.  The rediscovery of his films is a major milestone, like rediscovering either Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Jacques Tati.  Etaix is that good.  This feature is all about a married man who suddenly falls in love with his new and very young (18) secretary.  There are so many funny scenes about marriage and affairs, but it is the main dream sequence that really sets this film apart from all others.  Etaix dreams he is in bed and driving down a road.  The sequence goes on for a long time, and is rich in sight comedy and hilarious situations.  Another film not to be missed.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Next came a 70s vampire feature called Blacula.  That just about sums up the film, as we get a hip LA version of a black vampire who rediscovers a look a like of his long lost wife.  The acting is quite good, but the story is the same old one, I'm afraid.  With Gordon Pinsent, a Canadian actor, as the police lieutenant trying to stop the vampire.

Seen on Criterion, but it has now left that service. 

Lastly comes a film from Thailand called By The Time It Gets Dark.  From 2016 it is the director's 2nd film.  Here is the Criterion description of the film:

"The delicately poetic second feature by Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong weaves together multiple stories and characters to create a portrait of a beautiful country haunted by the lingering trauma of the 1976 government-sanctioned massacre of student demonstrators in Bangkok. A shape-shifting narrative around memory, politics, and cinema, the film weaves together the stories of several characters. We meet a young waitress serving breakfast at an idyllic country café, only to later find her employed in the busy dining room of a river cruise ship. And we meet a filmmaker interviewing an older woman whose life was transformed by the political activism of her student years and the Thammasat University massacre of 1976. With her tender, unobtrusive filmmaking style, Suwichakornpong allows us to get to know these characters slowly and deeply. At the same time, we see how their country and its troubled history inform their actions and identities in ways both overt and subtle." 

Though it is beautiful to watch, I found it quite confusing, and not nearly clear enough in dealing with the violence of the mid 70s.  It just flows (not seamlessly) from one story or character to another, almost in mid-stream, and leaves the story being watched as unfinished.  Which leads me to wonder if this could have been more successful as a formal small group of short films, which it essentially is, but without the form.  Definitely aimed at the festival circuit.

Now showing on Criterion.

And lastly, another Van Gogh painting currently visiting Detroit.  This is a favourite of ours from the Art Institute of Chicago.  Nice to have it in town.

The Bedroom, from 1889.  Showing in Detroit, visiting from Chicago.  Van Gogh. 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Rain Has Arrived

It's been raining all day Sunday, something we needed badly 5 months ago.  But it has finally rained and broken the jinx.  We will have had about 1" of rain when it is all over, the most rain we have had since early June.  And it's been a mild week, and I was able to snag two perfect nights for deep sky astronomy!  November and December are our two cloudiest months, so if I get even one good night between those months I am surprised.  Of course these are not normal times for climate;  we've had plenty of sunshine this month, and mild air.  Looking ahead, Dec. 1st returns us to the world of more normal weather.

 

My two clear nights, Wednesday and Friday last, were both very different.  Wednesday was quite damp (and chilly), and I ended up driving home through some very atmospheric fog for a time.  Friday night was dry as can be.  Both nights were good for observing distant and faint galaxies, though I always pepper my sessions with a few show pieces, to place things into perspective.  I have been working late autumn skies the past few years in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).  It covers a vast area of sky, much of it low on my horizon, making it very challenging to see faint objects.  But my windmill site is perfect for this sort of thing, with dark skies pretty much down to the horizon.  I just finished writing up my field notes today.  Hopefully I will get a night or two in December, but being realistic, I am probably done now till March.  My warm clothing is good for several hours at temps down as far as 25 F, with little to no breeze.  It got down to 29 F Friday night, but I had no problems.  Dressing for cold weather is quite different when you are going to spend that time standing or sitting in one place.  One has to dress for temps about 20 F below what they actually are to remain warm.

 

Practicing is going well, though I have been off a bit in my schedule this past week.  All of the pieces are playable, though not yet ready for any type of performance.  They are, however, ready for a lesson from Philip, if I can squeeze one in there before the holidays.  It is a lot of fun to play so much Bach, more than I have ever done at once before (7 pieces).  I have always loved to play Bach, and I am getting a good workout this time around.  I haven't played any Grieg since about 1974/75, so it was about time I took on a series of his Lyric Pieces.  The influence of Bach (and others) can be seen and heard throughout these pieces.

 

Our nightly listening program continues to progress, always in three directions.  We are continuing our complete Beethoven project, and have nearly completed his middle period works.  We are also alternating Haydn's Paris Symphonies with Schumann's complete piano music as the 2nd part of our program.  The third part consists of playing through all of our Baroque LP records.  This used to be a favourite time for the cats, too, who are always sorely missed.

 

Turning to viewing news, we have finished watching the 8 episode season of Tales From the Loop.  The series is uneven in quality, but when it's good, it is really good.  Our favourites were episode 1 (which we are going to rewatch now), episode 5, and episode 7.  The final episode was really good, but relied on a poor choice of plot interference to kill off one of the characters.  There were so many better ways this could have been done.  The series has links to each episode through characters, especially a young boy, Cole, though each story is pretty much independent.  The series leaves a lot of mysteries untouched, including what research goes on at the Loop itself.  No season two has been announced, but it would be a shame if no others were ever made.

 

Three movies from Criterion we watched were The Daughter of Dawn from 1920, Deep Cover from 1992, and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, from 1968.  Daughter is a recent rediscovery of a silent film made entirely with a cast of Native Americans, and tells a story of trouble between the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.  Entirely filmed in Oklahoma, it is the only film that shows Plains Indians in the true plains where they lived.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Deep Cover features Jeff Goldblum and Lawrence Fishburne in a stylish noir.  Fishburne plays an undercover cop trying to take down some drug middlemen, as he is told not to touch the top echelon.  But he goes all the way up, and a good script and some fine acting make the time fly past.

Showing on Criterion for three more days. 

 

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a touching and sad film from the deep south starring Alan Arkin as a deaf mute.  To be near a deaf mute friend who has become institutionalized, who is also mentally challenged, he moves towns and takes a room with a family suffering through its own hardships.  A teenage girl at first abhors the thought of a "dummy" living in their house, but soon becomes enamoured with him, and comes to love him as a dear friend.  She wants to become a classical pianist, and loves music.  He buys her records and she tries to describe music to him as it happens.  Their friendship becomes very touching.  The book by Carson McCullers is something I would like to track down via Kindle, and read soon.  Painful at times, mostly due to white against black racism.  A very good film, and highly recommended.

 

Showing on Criterion for 3 more days. 

 

I'll finish up with another great Van Gogh painting visiting Detroit during its unparalleled exhibit.  This is one of several works sent to Detroit by the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.  Thank you Amsterdam!

One of two Sowers in the Detroit exhibit, this one from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum.

 

I'll be back in a few days with the November reading summary. 

Mapman Mike.

 

 

Scoreboard: Winter 1, Lone Mtn Homestead 0

It was a brutal end to a warm and sunny and lovely late autumn.  But Saturday, Nov. 12th brought the dreaded reality to life.  Winter is never far away in November.  We had plunging temps and high winds, lasting through Sunday, Nov. 20th.  What we did not receive was the 5' to 6' of snow some lucky places did during that hellish time.  Mostly New York state, but also a good part of Ontario near Niagara Falls.  We did get one blast of snow one night, which sent the noisy snow plows out to do their thing.  But it has warmed up again, and it's sunny once more, and the winds have dropped, and our snow is gone.  Thanks be given.

 

Needless to say we did not do very much during the winter blast.  Amanda visited twice, and we had one outing by car to a nearby cafe and a few shops (and a distillery).  But we cancelled our bus trip to Windsor, not having much ambition to be at a bus stop when it's cold and windy.  Amanda has been promoted to Head of Publishing at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.  Best of all, she gets to work from home 90 % of the time, permanently.  So she was able to work at her mom's house in the mornings, and hang out in the afternoon and evenings.

 

I did catch up on my reading during the cold spell, and am now reading a book off my shelf.  More on that topic at the end of the month.

 

In viewing news, we have continued to watch, in rotation, three Wondrium courses, and three series on Prime.  We have another series in the waiting room, called English, when we finish one of our Prime series.  We also have a stack of courses in the Wondrium queue, too.  So we limit ourselves to three TV series at a time, and three courses.  The current courses are a history of piano literature from Bach onwards, a series called Science Fiction as Philosophy, and another about ancient astronomy, with a worldwide scope.  The prime series are Tales From the Loop, Night Sky, and The Wheel of Time.  There is another series of interest showing on AMC+, Interview With A Vampire,which we will likely watch soon, too.

 

In movie news, we watched Prater, Ulrike Ottinger's 2007 documentary on the bizarre Viennese amusement park.  It is quite good, and it follows the history from its founding to the present day.  The entire park was destroyed by bombing by the Nazis in WW II, as foreigners worked there, and Jewish people.  There never seems to be any good news that comes out of the devastation wrought by the Nazis (yet still people follow and idolize them).

 

Showing on Criterion till Nov. 30th/22 

 

Lastly came Neon Bible, a Terrence Davies film from 1995.  Set in America's south, it is the story of a young boy growing up in a small town in the 50s.  Based on a novel written by a 16 year old boy, but withheld from publication by his mother for many years, the movie to me was a total failure.  The character of the young boy was so bland, and the film so saturated with terrible music (played and sung loudly and for lengthy periods) that we nearly quit  watching it.  The last half hour was a bit better, with less music and more story, and the boy began to finally show some emotion.  But many of the scenes go on far too long, and they don't seem to advance the plot or deepen it.  There are, however, a few fine moments, mostly dealing with the relationship between the boy and his outgoing aunt.  Overall, though, it was not enjoyable to watch.

Showing on Criterion till Nov. 30th/22 

 

In lieu of an astronomy night grumbling, I present a painting now in Detroit at the Van Gogh exhibit.  We are hoping to visit once more in early to med December, before the holiday rush.

 

Starry Night Over The Rhone, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888.  From Musee d'Orsay, Paris.  Now on display in Detroit.  Note the prominent Big Dipper. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Return of the Film Project

Several years ago I took up film photography again, and had a lot of fun with my many different classic cameras.  A recent late night visit to a Detroit gallery exhibiting enlargements of Polaroid shots got my interest up again.  I have not shot film in a long while.  In fact, two of my cameras still had film in them several years old.  I did finish up the 126 film, and sent it off.  Some results can be seen below.  The other film had been in the camera for too long, so I just trashed it.  I will reload the camera (an old fold out) and try again.  It appears that I have 10 cameras that shoot film, including 35 mm, 126, 120, 620, Polaroid 600, Fuji Instax wide, 127, and 110 for a very unique spy camera.  I now possess film for all of these cameras again, or should any day now.

 Some of my old film cameras.  L to R:  Thagee foldout (I now have a 2nd foldout), Zenith Sharpshooter, Rollei 35 mm (the best camera ever made!), Polaroid 600, Instamatic 500, Minolta Spy Camera, Herco Imperial (now defunct--Deb made it into a steampunk purse!), Baby Brownie Special (never used yet by me--film on the way!).  Not shown is my Instamatic SLR, with extra lenses, and my Fuji Instax Wide.  Updated photo to come.  

The central camera in the above photo is the Instamatic 500, taking 126 cartridges.  It was made in Germany and is a superb camera, costing a lot of dollars back in the day.  It was the top of the line Instamatic until the SLR came along.  Sadly, 126 film is no longer made, but I still have 3 rolls in the fridge.  Here are some recent images from the film that had been in that camera for about 3 years.

 Downtown Detroit, Christmas 2015.

 Emma Lee, Lynne, Steve, and Deb.  Lake Nipissing, summer 2016.  That's what I always loved about shooting film; Christmas and summer pics on the same roll!).

 The neighbourhood coffee roaster.  Fall 2016.

 Detroit River, a few days ago, across from our house in Amherstburg.  Yes, that is ice floating down the river.

Expect to see some more film photography results here soon.  We had a day excursion planned for today along the north shore of Lake Erie.  However, it was too cold, and the cloudy sky was without any contrast.  We'll try again next week.  Meanwhile, a trip to Detroit is planned soon, once my film order arrives at our mailbox there.

And now we turn to another famous artist, this one a painter of some repute.  Detroit owns 4 paintings by Vincent Van Gogh; two are landscapes, one is a self portrait, and one a portrait.

 The Diggers, 1889, Van Gogh.  Detroit Institute of Arts.

65 cm x 50 cm. 

Sometimes it takes me awhile to warm to paintings by this artist; at other times, I can instantly appreciate them.  For some reason I have always liked this painting.  Not loved it, but liked it.  The diggers appear to be removing a stump, a job that requires better tools than these poor labourers seem to be using.  There seem to be very few trees remaining in this otherwise barren landscape; one wonders if the standing trees are also fated to be removed, to make way for more field.  One worker is faceless, the other has his face hidden from us.  Van Gogh seems more interested in their work than in them.  It is a strange painting by a strange man, but the composition seems to work.

Detail of above.  The men appear to have been squeezed out of a blue tube of paint.

 The sky and background are executed in a very minimalist style, indicating the artist's interest in the foreground, not the distant lands.

 Amazing foreground detail.  To me, this would make a splendid full sized painting! 

Mapman Mike