Getting Through It

It's Friday afternoon, it's sunny and 32 F, and I have a fine ale in my hands.  Hello weekend!  Even when one is retired it's always worth celebrating the weekend.  Force of habit, maybe.  Our snow began to melt today, and that should accelerate through next week, when it might rain once again.  Even though winter only overextended its stay by a week, it has been a fairly brutal month for winter temps and weather.  We made out better than just about anyone else, though, so not many complaints from here.  However, we will be faced with yet another $300 heating bill for the month.

 

A road trip find from last October, this tasty dark ale is from

Indiana.  On my desk as I type! 

 

There just may be a few people left in the civilized world that have not yet woken to the fact that the world has changed drastically in the last month, all thanks to one or two people.  In fact, it has been turned upside down.  In fact, it will likely never be the same.  After all, who can ever trust a country again that blames Ukraine for starting a war with Russia?  And then goes on to ask Putin what he would like to have in return for stopping his self defence actions.  Who can trust a country that wants to take over Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, by force if necessary, but likely through extreme economic pressure?  We won't even get into the effects these same two people will have on fighting climate change.  Never mind tariffs and firing workers by the thousands in order to save money to give back to the rich in tax breaks.  Never mind stopping government scientists from reporting on climate change.  The USA is now too inconsistent to really ever fully be trusted again.  Sure, in four years all this may be washed away by a democratic victory, but what about four years after that?  It's certainly time to find some new friends and allies, and avoid the roller coaster politics of present day America.  And speaking of fired US government workers, slightly more than half of them must have voted for the current ruler.  How did that work out for you?  Still a fan?  I wonder how long before Taiwan "attacks" China and starts that war.

 

In a continuing effort to improve my piano program, I had a lesson today with Philip A., getting through most of the pieces in a 90 minute lesson.  I will return to his home next Friday for a follow-up.  There were helpful comments regarding the Bach pieces as well as the Haydn Sonata.  So, much more work lies ahead in the coming week. 

 

In Homestead news, we had our third and final new outside door installed yesterday.  That completes the doors and windows project, which has cost us mucho dinares.  this door is the main one we use, and leads from the garage into the house.  It took nearly four hours for two workers to remove the old door and frame and put in the new one.

 

The old door had very poor insulating ability and 

was long overdue for replacement. 

 

The new door from house to garage.

  In movie news, there are three to report.  Most recently we began viewing a small series of Film Noir from Argentina, directed by Fernando Ayala.  The Bitter Stems is from 1956, and might better be named Bitter Irony.  Two new friends work a scam to raise money by offering a correspondence course in journalism.  It works out well, but it is agreed that most of the profits will go to the partner who wants to bring his family across to escape from hard times in Europe.  Then the other man becomes suspicious and does not believe there really is a family.  So he kills his partner.  Guess what?  He does have a family after all.  Oh well.  We can get through this.  He buries the man in his garden.  More complications arise, and near the end of the film it appears that the body is about to be discovered.  So the killer kills himself.  Guess what?  The body isn't discovered after all.  Oh well.  It might be a bit more difficult to get through this mistake.  Filmed in b & w, it offers a totally different take on Film Noir.  Several more of the director's recently restored films lie ahead.

 

Several of the director's films are showing on Criterion. 

 

Before that came Don't Bother To Knock, a drama starring Marilyn Monroe as a recently cured psychotic who is not so cured after all.  Her nervous uncle (Elisha Cook, Jr.) operates an elevator in a swanky hotel, and gets her a job babysitting a young girl for the night.  She doesn't do so well.  She makes contact with Richard Widmark across the way and invites him over.  Before the night is done the child ends up bound and gagged and nearly pushed out the window by her babysitter (probably not that an uncommon outcome now that I think of it).  Elisha Cook gets hit over the head by her with a very heavy ashtray, and then locked in a closet.  Monroe is pretty convincing as a person slipping quickly into a state that is not compatible with your average babysitter's personality.  Richard Widmark has left his girlfriend with cold feelings for him until she sees him trying to help Monroe get through her bad times.  Then she falls for him again, but in a more solid fashion.  It is not likely that the child's mother will ever go out for dinner and dancing again, or that the child will ever want to play any games with little friends that involve being tied up.

 

Child and babysitter come to some form of agreement.  Leaving Criterion Feb. 28th. 

 

Life Is Cheap But Toilet Paper Is Expensive is a bomb of a film by Wayne Wang, a director who has been reliable up till now.  A low level mafia guy brings a briefcase to Hong Kong and has some difficulty delivering it.  In the meantime he has a fling with the big boss's girlfriend.  The film is nearly plotless and without direction, but it is filmed in Hong Kong.  The best scene is a long foot chase down the mountain from the scenic lookout all the way down to water level, when the briefcase is stolen by two thieves up top.  The camera work is really good here and many parts involve running through real crowds.  We descend staircase after staircase, all in one long shot, with the camera running along with the three actors.  Sadly most of the film is pure trash, though there are a few intentional laughs along the way.  Best avoided.

 

Leaving Criterion Feb. 28th. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Early Winter

Last Friday we completed our series of walks on the local rails to trails trail. It was 65 F, and we were in summer jackets. The two weeks before had been lovely weather, too, often getting into the 70s. Then came Saturday (the 12th). Suddenly the temperature was 33 F, and it snowed all day. We were outside trying to plant our spring bulbs, and it was not fun. It has been cold for a week now, and we are heading into the worst of it over the next three days. Monday it is supposed to moderate. I sure as hell hope so.

We had a bus trip to Windsor planned with Amanda for this past Wednesday, but due to a stiff breeze and freezing temps, we cancelled. Instead, we had a long afternoon wood fire here at home, with music, food, drinks, and such. We have recently spent two long afternoons with Amanda as our guest (once with her mom), and hope to see her at least once more before she heads back to Toronto. Parts of New York, including Buffalo, are just entering into a three day snow event that will dump 3-4 of snow. Incredibly cold winds are blowing off the lakes, which are still warm, picking up huge amounts of moisture, and dumping it on land. Our boiler is on its serious heat setting, and it will remain that way until Nature shows some mercy. We are getting the high winds, but not much snow. Parts of Michigan along lake Michigan, and parts of Ontario along Lake Huron, are saying goodbye to a brown landscape, and hello to a white one.

Winter is often tolerable in this part of the world when the winds aren't roaring. Calm, cold winter days and nights are among some of the finest one can ever experience. But add a howling wind and blowing, drifting snow, and hell hath no fury like it. I've had two outings today to feed the birds. It's garbage night, so I will be heading out once more in an hour or two.

In film news, some good things to report. Before I begin, I will say that I am becoming more and more impressed with how documentaries are being presented. They are evolving works of great entertainment, besides their usual function of educating us philistines about things we should know about but don't. A few good ones will be briefly mentioned in a moment.
Denis Villeneuve's 1998 August 32nd on Earth is an early film by the director of the new Dune film. It's a difficult movie to categorize, or even summarize. It's a somewhat puzzling and unsatisfying look at two close friends, a man and a woman. She is a type of supermodel who has just quit her job. He is an unsettled man with a girlfriend, whom we never really see. The retired model (who never wears any makeup in her scenes, and dresses quite blandly, but we see magazine covers of her in full model mode) contacts her male friend. She tells him that she wants a baby, and that she wants him to do the job. No strings attached. She will go off with baby, and he never need see her again. He jokingly says that he will do it, but only in the desert. They fly from Montreal, where they live, to Utah, and are soon immersed in an otherworldly land of nothingness. Not exactly fun to watch, but curious viewers might be kept watching. Not for all tastes, certainly. The ending was a disappointment.

Showing on Criterion.

Manhattan Melodrama from 1934 is just that. Starring William Powell, Clark Gable, and Myra Loy, it is a watchable old thing that tells the story of two friends who grow up on different sides of the tracks. One becomes a gangster, and the other the district attorney for New York, and then governor of that state. The acting is good, of course, and the story not as predictable as it sounds. The character played by Gable (the gangster) is likable to the end, and he plays him well.  One of the better endings of an early film.

 

Leaving Criterion Nov. 30th. 

 

Next followed two quite brilliant docs.  Terrence Davies ode to growing up in Liverpool is called Of Time and the City, from 2008.  It is a fascinating and very moving experience to watch this film about a city that virtually never makes it to the big screen.  There are many indelible images used, including plenty of children playing and surviving the bleakness of their surroundings in blissful unawareness.  Davies narrates with his own writing, and also with quotes form Joyce and T. S. Eliot, among others.  The images and the reading go beautifully together.  I can relate, having grown up in a dirty and very smelly mining town in Northern Ontario, though at the time it was simply my home, where I came from, and who I was.  Anyone from out of town who said anything bad about it was off my friendship list for life.  Mind you, I was allowed to say things about it, but not people from elsewhere.  This is a different kind of documentary film, and we enjoyed it a lot.  We have seen one other drama by Davies, and there is another in the queue.

Showing until Nov. 30th on Criterion. 

 

Searching For Mr. Rugoff is a documentary from 2019, about a film promoter who influenced American cinema tastes and helped (inadvertently) kick start the American independent film movement.  Rugoff owned and operated a cinema chain with 5 or 6 new York City theatres, and began bringing over European films by Godard, Truffaut, Wertmuller, etc.  He is a hard man to describe.  He wasn't well liked by most people who knew him, being a tyrant.  But he changed cinema newspaper and radio adds, and developed American's taste for non-Hollywood films.  He is a man virtually no one remembers or has heard of today, so this film should go a long way to correcting that.  This is a truly fascinating film about a very influential man who just disappeared off the radar once he lost his business.  A must-see for fans of cinema.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

I'll conclude with one more film, halfway between a drama and a documentary.  Chan Is Missing is from 1982, directed by Wayne Wang.  We have now seen a few other films by Mr. Wang, who tells stories of Chinatown, San Francisco.  In this one we get behind the scene glimpses of life there (in b&w) under the guise of a search for a missing person by a friend.  The story doesn't mean that much, other than what it tells us about Chinese Americans.  Sometimes it is very funny, and other times it is dramatic.  Not entirely successful, at least it is very short.  Chan becomes the symbol of a search for a true Chinese American.

Chan Is Missing is showing on Criterion. 

 

We are currently watching a documentary by Ulrike Ottinger, about a bizarre Viennese amusement park.  More on that later.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

News Fit To Print

 It's been a pretty calm week around the Homestead, and we are both hoping for more of the same.  Weather continues to be autumnal, and it's one of the greenest holiday periods we've ever seen.  We had a lot of rain on Christmas Day, spoiling my chance for an afternoon of hiking at Point Pelee National Park.  Deb wanted to spend a longer time with her mom on Saturday, so I had plans for a shorter visit, and then to go hiking.  Instead, I came home for a few hours, then drove back to pick up Deb in Kingsville.  Today it is bright and sunny.  Of course.

I spoke with my parents at length both on Christmas Eve and Christmas night.  They are both fine and doing quite well, though Dad is still barely mobile due to a bad knee.  As our local Covid cases surge, it looks like we will be hunkered down in January.  It's usually a good month for such activity anyway.  And of course it has been continually cloudy at night, so astronomy has been a no go.  At least I've been practicing piano regularly, and doing a lot of reading.  I usually read about 2 1/2 hours each day, and practice piano about 1 1/2 hours each day.  The exercise program continues as well, around 2 1/2 hours per week, until more is needed.

The shipping channels over here are as busy as ever, but the northern locks will likely close soon.  I have seen shipping continue year round once or twice, and this might be another year for it.  The Amherstburg coast guard ice breaker is in place, but there is no ice in sight yet.  I read a fun article yesterday, on the Accu Weather website, about the tradition of wanting a "white" Christmas, referring to fresh, fluffy snow on the ground.  I always wondered who to blame for such nonsense, and it seems I now have my target in sight.  It likely all started with Charles Dickens, but since then it's gotten way out of hand.  Kind of like ground hog day.  People seem starved for any time of "tradition", rather than trying to establish their own, or observe the real ones that have been around for millennia, such as the solstices.  It's a funny world peopled by funny people.

Our own Solstice Day celebration was a blast.  It was just barely cold enough to warrant an indoor wood fire, though it was of shorter duration than other years.  We sampled the first disc (of four) of Philip Glass' Music In Twelve Parts, and then listened to the CD called Glassworks, and another one called Philip Glass-Piano Works, performed by Vikingur Olafsson.  He is a favourite pianist whom we heard perform in London several years ago.  I already chose a piece from this collection to perform on my next next recital (probably late 2022).  And tonight we will give Einstein on the Beach a go.  We purchased a Blue Ray disc of the opera in early December, from Germany, and it arrived Dec. 22nd.

Just as the pandemic was getting underway in the late winter of 2020, we had booked flights to San Diego.  We had to cancel at the last minute, as Deb wasn't feeling well.  That week the disease exploded in California, so it's just as well we didn't travel then.  We had full insurance to cancel (through Orbitz) and got a full refund on our flight, hotel, and car.  So imagine my surprise when I looked at our Orbitz account recently and found out that we each have $373 in Delta flight credits, good until December 2022.  I don't know if it's a mistake, or why they are there.  We were refunded by the insurance company, and yet the flights are still available to us.  Hopefully we will get a chance to use these credits in 2022.

Other than movie talk, that's all the news for now.  So, on to movies. 

My two choices last week were Heaven Can Wait, directed by Lubitsch and from 1943, and Belladonna of Sadness, an animated feature from 1973 Japan.  Of the two, I preferred the Lubitsch, a gentle comedy about a man dying, meeting the devil, and telling him his life story, before being sentenced.  It was in colour, and had some wonderful lines.

Showing on Criterion until Friday night.

Belladonna is an adult animated feature, purportedly taking place in medieval times.  On her wedding day, a young woman is raped by the lord of the manor and his friends.  The movie is graphically sexual, though largely through symbolic images, and violent.  It doesn't pull any punches, as the woman survives and slowly becomes corrupted by vengeance.  The film is sometimes hard to watch because of flickering imagery, and should have come with an epilepsy warning.  Some of the animation techniques created some truly beautiful and stunning imagery, often seemingly at odds with the unrelenting horror of the material.  A very strange film from the psychedelic era.

Showing on Criterion through Friday.  

Deb's two choices were also from the Leaving Dec. 31st film list, and just as opposite one another as my two choices.  First up was The Mummy, from 1932, starring Boris Karloff as the reactivated man in love with his princess.  It is remarkable how easily he adjusted to life in 20th C. Cairo, after having been asleep since around 1700 B C.  He also has a very stylish apartment, with an indoor pool of water that gets remarkably good reception on various live channels, as well as ones from thousands of years ago.  Some creepy moments, but mostly still fun, in a dusty sort of way.

One of the great movie posters of the 30s!  Showing until Friday on Criterion. 

Eat A Bowl of Tea is from 1989, by director Wang Wang.  Based on a novel by Louis Chu, the setting is 1949 New York, just as the American government is finally allowing Chinese immigrants to return to China and bring women and families back to live.  With the current local population totally male, a young man makes the journey back to China, finds a bride, and returns with her to new York.  Dad immediately wants a grandson, but there is trouble on the horizon, as the son cannot seem to consummate the marriage.  Mostly a funny glance back at a very weird time, there is enough drama to satisfy those without a sense of humour.  Well acted, especially by the old timers.

Showing on Criterion until Friday. 

Mapman Mike