April Showers

Despite all the rain we have had lately, I have had two clear nights since Friday!  I managed to log just over 35 galaxies in that time, a pretty amazing feat.  Many were grouped, with a group of seven and a group of six helping to speed things up.  It certainly gives on a unique perspective on life, the universe, and everything.

This is a triple medical appointment week for Deb.  Today she saw Dr. McCaffrey again, following up on last week's MRI.  She is booked for surgery on May 31st, with recovery expected to take 6 months.  Ouch!  No travelling for us for awhile.  Tomorrow she sees her brand new family doctor, just to get things rolling with him.  And on Thursday is her RA infusion.  A busy week without doing very much.

The grass got cut yesterday, but it was driving the tractor through a rice paddy.  Water is everywhere, and the fields are swamped.  And we have not put away our winter jackets yet, either.  When I left the observatory last night around midnight, it was 39 F.  Just as cold this morning, too.  It rained today, and will continue to do so until at least Thursday.  Pretty insane.

Deb's 2nd film selection from the Criterion Channel (and our 4th so far) was from 1947, a fully restored technicolour extravaganza directed by Alexander Korda.  Based on "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, it was difficult to concentrate on the words, as the visuals simply swept us away!  Fully remastered, this seemed as much an LSD trip than a movie.  Stunning costumes in even more stunning colours, outrageous and over sized hats, ballrooms, bedrooms, outdoor promenades--this is a film to see, if not to hear.  Of course the script is wonderful and filled with quotable quotes by the dozen, and Michael Wilding steals every scene he is in with his good grace and winning smile (and fabulous wardrobe).  Great stuff!

I have been slogging away at my new pieces for just over a month now.  I can barely play the Bach Prelude; I can't manage the 4-part fugue at all yet.  I am working only on the the first movement of the Haydn Sonata in Bb, leaving the other two parts until I can play the first well enough.  The Schubert Impromtu is 11 pages long, and I am slowly getting my hands around the first 9 pages.   The Bartok Allegro Barbaro is a piece like no other, and I have always wanted to learn it.  Really really fun!  It is as close as I will ever get to riding with a conquering barbarian horde!   After that loud and very energetic piece, I will finish things off with a lovely waltz by Brahms.

Tomorrow night is Beltane, and we will enjoy our final wood fire of the season.  We will also undertake to watch my next film choice, a movie I saw only once maybe 35 years ago or more in Detroit, and have always wanted to see again.  What is it?  Tune in to my next blog entry and you will find out.  When time permits, I will continue with my DIA art theme, too.  For now, I still have a lot of astronomy notes to write up.

Mapman Mike

Asbestos and Other Fun Things

It's been busy times around LMH lately, as the ground and its inhabitants begins to come fully awake.  The dandelions are out, so the tortoise is quite pleased.  The grass is growing, and that means lawn tractor season officially begins this weekend.  So does weeding.  With all the rain we have had, and all of the standing water around us, it should also be a very miserable mosquito season.  Still, not to complain too loudly, as there is a lot of flooding occurring in various parts of Canada right now.

Yesterday was Detroit day, mainly an excursion to hear the DSO perform a concert of music by Vivaldi.  The conductor was the Scottish Baroque conductor Nicholas McGegan.  4 works were performed by Vivaldi, and one by a contemporary composer influenced by him.  The main work on the program was the Gloria.  A 55 person choir and three soloists were accompanied by a small orchestra of about 28 musicians.  With the perfect acoustics of Orchestra Hall, it is doubtful if the 30 minute piece ever sounded better.  I had the opportunity to sing this piece in university with the U of W choir, more than 40 years ago now!!  I sang bass.

Also on the program were two works for mandolin and orchestra.  The Concerto for Mandolin and Strings, "Three Sisters," by Anna Clyne, proved a highlight of the concert, with virtuoso mandolin player Avi Avital giving an outstanding performance.  The concert will be broadcast live on Saturday night at 8 pm EDT.  It will be fun to hear it all again.

 Nearly time to begin the 2nd half of the concert at Orchestra Hall, Detroit.  The main work was the Vivaldi "Gloria."  

Now on to the asbestos part of our program.  We have some in the garage, and a company came to take a look at it and give a removal estimate.  Fine.  We were expecting that.  Then he went downstairs to check on another problem, and he discovered that our crumbling floor tiles are actually also made from asbestos.  That was a shock.  We are now looking at a price tag of around $5,000.00.  Good thing we didn't want to travel this year anyway.  But that still isn't the biggest part of the problem.  No.  In order to remove the asbestos, we have to have everything out of the basement and moved into the garage.  So we will also have to hire a moving company to come and empty our basement, and then put everything back again afterwards.  I do not yet know the cost of that project.

In other news, Deb finally gets to see her shoulder specialist on Monday.  We should have a much better idea then if surgery is needed and/or profitable, and a rough time line as to when that might take place.  She injured it in 2015, so the damage is likely permanent at this stage.  We shall see.

We also attended a funeral memorial service last week.  Dave Upcott's wife Connie passed away from cancer.  Dave was a close friend and colleague at APS.  There was a significant turnout for him, including several former students.  Dave gave the main talk, and held it together during his very moving and often times humourous speech.

Mapman Mike

Criterion Channel Part 3

Today was sunny and mild, as we begin to dry out from all the rain of late.  We finally got into the yard and picked up all of the fallen tree branches from the autumn and winter wind storms.  We also got the lawn tractor up and running, though it needs an oil change asap.  Deb also roasted a batch of Mexican coffee beans.  

As I await a book from Amazon, my next read by J. G. Ballard, I picked off a book from my regular shelf and am just finishing up T. H. White's "The Book Of Merlyn," which is part 5 of his "Once and Future King."  I also have one essay remaining from my Bruegel download, about the exhibit we attended in Vienna last December.

It was my turn to choose a film from the Criterion Channel tonight.  I choose a 1964 Japanese Samurai film called "The Assassin."  Directed by Masahiro Shinoda, it is also known as "The Assassination.  It has a lengthy running time of 144 minutes, and was filmed in b & w wide screen format.

The music is by Toru Takemitsu, and is perfect in every way.  The cinematography is among the best I've seen, and includes a strange use of the camera in the final scenes.  The storytelling is bizarre, and could be off-putting to some viewers.  The story is told in something like jigsaw puzzle fashion, and we never get a clear picture of the main hero, or where he is heading or what he believes.  Hachiro Kiyokawa is a master swordsman, a born leader, and a good planner.  But his schemes ricochet too much for many of his close followers, who rightly wish to know what exactly he is doing.  Does Hachiro even know himself?  He seems to be an opportunist whose motives change with the wind.

 One of the beautiful interior scenes.  

 One of the incredible outdoor scenes. 

The camera work and the music are so wonderful that it is difficult to even get caught up in the plot.  I was happy just watching the next scene roll by.  This is a film that is worth watching several times.  Unfortunately, at the moment, we have a complicated set up that works, but we can't watch it on the desktop.  Still, we are watching it on our wide screen TV, and the movies look fantastic on it!

There are 65 Samurai movies listed for viewing on Criterion, and I have barely seen half of them.  Still, I hope to watch this one again.  The violence is shocking when it occurs, but overall there is much less of it than in most films of its type.  The sword work is realistic, too.  Definitely a masterpiece of cinema.  It was the director's first period film.  He obviously did his homework.

Mapman Mike

Handmade Films at Criterion

We watched our 2nd film on the new Criterion streaming channel.  It was Deb's pick this time, and she chose an older favourite.  Back in the late 1980s there was an art house cinema in downtown Detroit, called the Tele Arts.  We went there several times a week, until it finally closed down after a few years.  That is where we first saw Powwow Highway, a Handmade Film from the company started by George Harrison, to promote high quality independent films.  I'm pretty sure we went back and saw it twice, then asked Carl, the owner, for the poster.  He gave it to us after the run!

We haven't seen it in quite a while, and when Deb spotted it on the Criterion list, her choice was made.  The movie is based on a book by David Seals.  Of course there are major differences between the book and the film, but they are both wonderful in their own way.  As soon as we had seen the film we tracked down the book.  I have only read it once, but will now try to read it again.

The movie pulls no punches about life on the reservation, as two Cheyenne men set out from Wyoming to Santa Fe, NM.  It also does a superb job of telling the story of Filbert (Gary Farmer) and Buddy Red Bow (A. Martinez), and their adventures on the highway as they set out to buy bulls for the tribe, and rescue Buddy's sister from jail in Santa Fe.  It's Christmas, and the decorations are often priceless, especially on the reservations.

Gary Farmer steals the show as the modern Cheyenne who wants to get in touch with the old traditions.  He does it in a very unique way, and by the end of the film he even has Buddy the skeptic and angry young man, convinced.  Farmer gives an Oscar-winning performance, but of course because of the anti-establishment and pro-Native messages, the film had no chance of winning anything significant in the US.  I'm not sure how widely the film was shown.  It is still a gem of a movie, despite part of it turning into an action adventure, which the book is not.  Highly recommended!

We went to Detroit on Thursday, staying for lunch and a quick visit to the DIA.  I have been updating Detroit craft beer pubs on my Midwest blog, and have a long way to go, especially if I only visit one pub per trip.  I had a large volume of stories by Jack Williamson awaiting me at the mailbox, and there were two 45 rpm records that had arrived, ordered by my brother for his downstairs juke box. 

Friday and Saturday it rained most of the day.  It has been dark, rainy, cold, and windy.  The ground is super saturated.  I've been wanting to get outside with my film cameras, but the weather has no been cooperating.  It is supposed to be warmer tomorrow and Monday.

Tomorrow (Easter Sunday) Deb has her MRI at Met hospital in Windsor.  Weird, but true.

Mapman Mike

The Criterion Channel

At present we have a work around, and, after 3 frustrating days, we finally got to watch our first movie on the new streaming service.  I got first pick; Deb chooses the next one.  Once each month we will have a day long film festival.  Tonight I chose 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, directed by Jean Luc Godard.  This was a test of our set up, which is somewhat involved, as well as the streaming quality.  Finally, everything worked like a charm!

The print was excellent, the subtitles easy to read, and the film was pretty damn interesting!

 We watched this Godard film tonight, on the Criterion Channel. 

Filmed in 1967 and released in 1967, it is an avant garde film that stands up to time really well.  Juliette lives in a modern high rise development in the suburbs of Paris, with her husband and two children.  There is no story, but the camera follows Juliette from evening to evening, through her day working as a prostitute in Paris, and back home again that evening.  Interwoven into the collage is the American war in Vietnam, consumerism, and a lot of existentialism.  I found it all quite refreshing, as it has been a while since I have seen films by this director, and have never seen this one before.

The cinematography is really well done, it's in vivid colour and CinemaScope wide screen format, and though the movie makes little sense, that is one of its main points; much of the time our lives do not much make sense, either.  The Vietnam war did not make much sense, and neither did the suburban dream of those planning those truly ugly living conditions outside of Paris.  Here is a short and decent essay about the movie, from the Criterion Collection website.   

Favourite moments for me were listening to Juliette's son reading his homework essay, on why girls and boys should try to get along; listening to children off camera talk about their playground and swings having been taken away, leaving them with nothing to do, and the amazing shots looking down into a cup of black coffee. 

In other exciting news, we had our house exterior power washed today!  It was somewhat overdue for a good bath.  Things look pretty good! 

Mapman Mike

Detroit Weekend: Art and Music

The Julliard Quartet was in town last Friday and Saturday, and we attended both of their concerts.  Friday night was at Wayne State, and we heard them play a single movement from a Haydn quartet, and the Bartok quartet #3.  The Haydn was truly amazing, one of his later Op. 70 quartets.  The Bartok, his shortest of six quartets, is one of my all time favourite pieces, and they played the pants off of it.

The Julliard also brought along their protege quartet, The Argus, a young group that also performed two works.  They performed the Fandango movement from a Boccherini quartet, and then played a stunning modern work by Tan dun, based on things heard in Chinese folk music and the Peking opera.  The Wayne State theatre is small and intimate; you could never hear chamber music in a better and more intimate setting.

Before the concert we went to the mailbox, where I had the rest of my classic film waiting for me.  Even though we had to go halfway across the metro area at 5 pm on a Friday, we made it there and back with no problem!  How's that for a freeway system?!  We parked ourselves at Eastern Market Brewing Company for a short time, then headed around the corner to Red Bull Art Gallery, where they were having an opening night event.  Three artists were displaying work.  However, only one of them was in the big leagues.  Patrick Quarm has art degrees from Ghana, and his colourful and insightful works were the highlight of the exhibit.  All three artists were present, and he seemed blown away by all the positive comments he was getting, including from us.

 Heads and Tails, 2019, Patrick Quarm.

66" x 39"

Bruwaa, 2019, Patrick Quarm.

80" x 61"

Hood, 2018.  Patrick Quarm.

58" x 43"  

Saturday we were back over for a full concert by the Julliard Quartet.  We heard three works, an early Beethoven quartet (Op. 18 #3), the Bartok one again (Yay!), and Dvorak's American Quartet, one of three major works he wrote while living and teaching in New York.  It was a fabulous concert!

Sunday we were supposed to head over to Detroit again, this time to hear the orchestra and Helene Grimaud perform Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto.  The weather was so cold and miserable on Sunday, however, and we were so burned out from the previous two days (I have to remember that I am not a young 60 years old any more), that we just stayed home.  Though it is sunny today, we still are wearing winter coats out for our midday walks.  Ridiculous, but real. 

Sunday night we tried to subscribe and log in to a new streaming servie, one I have waited all my life for.  Criterion has over 1500 movies on-line and ready for streaming.  However, their system does't work for a whole lot of people, and after 4 hours of trying to watch a movie, we gave up.  That would have been too good to be true.  Back to Amazon Prime.

Mapman Mike

A Detroit Triple Weekend

Despite a few mild days, we are still wearing winter coats on our walks.  And even today there was snow in southern Ontario, as there has been several times recently.  Not here, thankfully, but it's cold.  The daffs finally bloomed, but they are not happy.

Tomorrow we visit Detroit for a Friday evening concert featuring the Julliard String Quartet.  We also have mailbox business, namely some film I ordered for the classic cameras.  It will have to be sunny, though, as though cameras were not designed for anything but California weather.  I am excited by this photo project, and can't wait to snap some film.  We are also attending a gallery opening at the incredible Red Bull Gallery in Eastern Market.  The gallery welcomes artists for a lengthy residency, then exhibits their work.  Three artists will be represented by this show.

Saturday we visit Detroit for the 2nd concert.  Again we will hear the Julliard Quarter perform!  They will be superb concerts!  And Sunday, if we can stand crossing the border yet again, we will hear Helene Grimaud perform with the DSO.  So a great weekend coming up.

Taxes are done for another year.  We will be getting a small return, which we will use for something fun.

When one things of Edgar Degas, one does not automatically think of landscape art.  One usually thinks of ballerinas.  However, Degas also loved horses, and he combines that passion with several outdoors scenes.  Detroit has six paintings by the master, as well as numerous drawings, and even a small sculpture.  Of the six paintings only one is of the ballet.  Two are single portraits, one is a double portrait, and the remaining two are landscapes with horses and riders.

 Morning Ride, Degas, ca. 1866, Detroit Institute of Arts.

85 cm x 65 cm 

I remember first seeing this painting many years ago and being quite disappointed.  The main reason was that the artist left the painting unfinished.  These days I tend to like unfinished paintings.  The sketchy ghostliness of the horses and riders seems appropriate somehow, especially considering that they are long passed out of this world.  And yet Degas has given them a type of eternal life, forever riding through the green, grassy landscape.  The beach scene is in Normandy.  Degas would sketch on the canvas, and then paint over it, and when up close one can see his methods.  Bruegel used to do the same thing, and his pencil marks are still visible on the Detroit Wedding Dance.

 Detail of above.

Jockeys on Horseback, 1884, Degas, Detroit Institute of Arts.  

45 cm x 55 cm

Jockeys on Horseback is one of the finest paintings by Degas I have ever seen.  It is incredibly rich in colour, and the high viewpoint combined with the falling and then rising landscape is an absolutely brilliant idea.  This is a painting I could look at for a very long time.  It entered the collection in 1998, and is on loan to exhibitions more than it is in the museum.  I find it a completely fascinating window from which to look out onto the world.  The individual horses and the colourful clothes of the jockeys make me appreciate Degas more than almost any other picture by him I have seen.  I can almost hear the horses snorting and snuffling, and the voices of the jockeys seem to come clearly through the air.  A truly marvellous picture!

Detail of above.

 Detail of background.  

I should have a report on our Detroit experiences on Sunday evening.

Mapman Mike