"Paddleton" a Netflix movie

A quick review: this is a very small, intimate movie about two geeky guys in their early 50's maybe, neighbors who eat dinner together most nights and watch strange kung fu movies and go off to their lame jobs during the day. Best friends of a sort.

No spoilers here because the first scene of the movie shows them in a doctor's office, finding out that one of the two is probably going to die of serious cancer. But right there, in that one scene, you sort of get these guys. "What, you never saw "All the President's Men?" one character says to the doctor, and I will leave that there. To explain it loses too much. Watch and see.

These two guys have no family (or at least none that we see) but they are a couple in the true sense of that word: they are simply together. Not as anything but friends but so much deeper than just friends, but then again, not really. Just friends.

I liked this movie a lot and in part because it is so simple and so clear. Nothing but two guys trying to figure out how to come to terms with death while at the same time trying to never come to terms with it. It's sort of like life: escape when you can and then hold your hands over your eyes and your ears when you cannot escape.  Then finally, accept it and be mad about it all. And, in the end, you have to move on.

Don't expect this movie to change your life ** but do expect it to make you think about life. What else is there?

** so, what movies do change your life? Well, other than the obvious like "Chinatown" and "The Godfather" and "The Shining" and maybe "Pulp Fiction."  (Two nights ago, watching the Academy Awards, I just wanted Samuel L. Jackson to say, totally out of context, "...hmm, this is a tasty burger!" )

Check out "Paddleton" if you are looking for a nice, quiet movie about love and life and death and trying to carry on.

xo.
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Rain? What rain? Climate change? What climate?

Today was a work day for me out at AutoCamp, smack in the middle of Guerneville, so I ventured out.  Got there and it was already impossible to walk through the gravel parking lot without getting your feet wet, so much standing water. The crew of three people (I was the fourth) was in a holding pattern, deciding whether or not to move quickly to tow the Airstreams out or wait and see what the flood stage would be.  Within an hour it was clear that flooding wasn't going to be a "what if" but a "when." Tow companies were called, reservations for the weekend were cancelled, everything that was out on the grounds was either moved inside or secured with ropes. Around noon the first tow truck arrived and Airstreams were towed to higher ground.

The road to Jenn and Dar's house flooded yesterday, and below is a photo of that road..... they are on higher ground so are fine and knowing my daughter, they have a freezer full of food. But still, it will be a few days before that dissipates. 



At the same time, John and Diane in Oregon have been snowed in for days. Wow.... what a winter!  And if you read the national news, the flooding in the south, in Tennessee and Mississippi and other states has been brutal, roads washed out, homes destroyed, and on and on.

Climate change does not exist, however. This is just fine, just a tiny bit different from normal, nothing to worry about.  Jerry Brown, our governor here until this past January, phrased it well in November, talking about the wildfires we have experienced in the past two years:  "This is not the new normal. This is the new abnormal."  We go from drought to floods, from swamp to wildfires, from record cold to record heat. And that's just in California.

For this moment we are focusing on the rain and flooding. It is too bad we (everyone, everywhere, especially those in power) didn't focus on the climate when there was a chance to mitigate the effects that depletion of the ozone layer would cause. Even today there could be measures put in place that would help, but our lame elected officials are mostly too worried about the next election and their lobbyists to come down stridently for drastic legislation to slow down the effects of this climate debacle. 

Last August 2018 the New York Times devoted the entire Sunday Magazine to this one topic. I will include the link below, but be prepared to spend an hour or two reading the issue. It is both remarkable and damning. But just google "NYT climate change articles" and read for hours. None of it is good.  Here is the link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

Back to the personal: my small dog (he's not that small, 25 pounds, but has little fur) Cooper does not like the rain but he will venture out if it isn't too bad. The past 36 hours have been hard on him. Yesterday morning and this morning we were able to get out for a 20 minute walk in very mild rain, so he got to pee and poop like normal. After that, not so much. He will willingly let me put his little rain coat on him but of course he forgets that the raincoat means rain and thus he is disappointed as we exit our place and we face hard rain. But I know he needs to pee, and he does, but then all he wants to do is turn around and go back. Poop?  Nope.  Not enough poop is happening, so we go out way more than he would like just on the off chance poop will happen. Cooper usually poops three times a day. At least. He is down to two times a day right now..... 
I know, TMI about my dog, but hey, it's life.  I won't bring this up again, other than to say my ears are on alert... if I hear a tiny bit of let-up in the rain, I jump up and out we go, just in case. But the slow downs in the rain aren't happening, it keeps raining harder and harder.

OK over and out for now. Stay safe and dry out there.

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"Hamlet" in town but no dogs in Shakespeare

For some time I have known that there is good local theater in these reaches of the North Bay but until today I have not enjoyed the thespian talents of those theaters. But having read a very nice review of a local production of "Hamlet" I decided to go. It was very good, especially the actor who portrayed the lead. "Hamlet" is a very long play, more than three hours and the fourth act is a bit draggy but once Ophelia is dead (not a spoiler) it picks up again for the last act with the sword fighting scene and lots of dead people on the stage at the end. Not that one attends the theater for death and mayhem but hey, it doesn't hurt the drama quotient and it keeps the viewer awake.  And no one really died, it is theater after all.

There was one point in the play when Ophelia is weeping for her dead father and it was so touching and emotional that viewers were sniffling, wiping tears from their eyes. In the next act, when Ophelia is dead and her brother Laertes is weeping, one could hear a couple of young viewers crying as well. That's how gripping the acting was in this play.

Let's be clear, I did not cry. I am a hardass about Shakespeare. The cool thing is that he managed to put small comic bits in every tragedy, and some of those I caught and chuckled at. The director of this rendition of "Hamlet" made use of those moments, and for that I applaud her.

I had no idea that the Spreckels Theater in Rohnert Park was such a cool venue. It seats about 550 people but it seems a lot smaller. Good acoustics and it doesn't have a bad seat in the place. I will definitely attend other productions. It is so close to me, about 15 minutes, and if today's performance is any indication, all I can say is YAY! 

However, there are no dogs in Shakespeare plays. (Did they not have pets then or did they eat dogs that were roaming around the 'hood?)  Since I left Cooper at Jenn and Dar's  house (dashing out of my work venue to get to the matinee on time) I do not have my small little man-dog here this evening and it is very odd to be at home without that appendage. (And I mean 'appendage' in a good way.) Tonight I realized that I talk to Cooper quite often and without him here I am just talking to myself. I shake my head at myself many times.

From what I read, Shakespeare wasn't a fan of dogs, or at least the culture of that time thought of dogs as mere trifles, not to be cared for. As one writer said, the Bard had no kind words for dogs: The overwhelming impression from the numerous references Shakespeare made to dogs, is that, with the exception of hunting hounds, these animals were nothing but nuisances in his world. They were dirty, dangerous, and bothersome. Even when they were being friendly, their fawning could not be trusted.

Had the Bard met Cooper, he might have had a different opinion. In the meantime, I will talk to my dog, with or without him present. As the Bard said in "Hamlet":  The cat will mew and the dog will have its day.
For whatever that's worth.

Good night.

"The Incendies", a movie on Netflix

A powerful, brutal yet redeeming story, this is a difficult movie to recommend. Twin siblings listen to a solicitor read the will their late Mother left and are shocked to learn that their father, whom they thought was dead, is alive. They also learn that they have a brother, a fact that was never shared with them. The will instructs them to find the father and the brother and give them specific letters written by their Mother. Quite unwillingly, they set off to an unnamed Middle East country to find these lost relatives and during that journey they learn about their Mother's past.

The movie moves back and forth from present to past, showing what happened to their Mother before the twins were born. The plot is like Russian nesting dolls, each layer revealing a detail of her life that the twins had never known. The film is dark and brutal in the way any story of man's inhumanity in the name of religion is brutal. But at the same time it is a story of the power of love and family and hope. This movie will stay with you for a while. I would recommend it with this caveat: be committed to seeing it through to the end. It is only in the end does the viewer recognize the power and force of that love and  hope. 

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Michael Ondaatje: "Warlight"

There are times when one encounters a writer that captivates the reader and the reader (i.e. me) will read everything that author has written. I have many favorite authors and am delighted when they produce a new book that I can dig into. It's much like finding a perfect recipe for a delicious soup that I can enjoy a spoonful at a time. But even as I write that, I know the analogy is not correct: a bowl of soup lasts a few minutes, a new book takes hours to savor.

And then there are authors that are rather intimidating to me. They seem almost too good, too intelligent, and as I read them I always feel that there's a secret code about their writing that I do not knows, as if they are simply too smart for me.  Michael Ondaatje is one of those writers.

I just finished reading "Warlight" and it is a remarkable historical novel. An English woman leaves her children in the care of friends so that she can supposedly join her husband in the Far East while he begins a new career. But what has actually happened is that woman has taken up a new career herself, that of a spy of sorts, with a new identity and the murky underworld of espionage.  This all takes place in the late 1940's, after WW2, when there was so much intrigue between Communists and other political factions and the world of secret intelligence blossomed beneath the cover of post-war recovery and growth.

This is  not an easy book to read because Ondaatje makes you read every sentence. It is difficult to skip over passages because each one holds a link to the next and the prose demands to be read slowly. I am a fast reader and books like this frustrate me while, at the same time, intrigue me. This book took a couple of weeks to finish because it forced me to concentrate not just on the plot but on the writing as well.

Sentences demand to be read several times, such as this passage: She has never met him as an uncertain person: it is the remade man she knows. He has shown her over the years the great vistas she desired; but she thinks now that perhaps the truth of what is before you is clear only to those who lack certainty."  

On a cold, dark, rainy day being forced to slow down and read carefully is an almost guilty pleasure.  Perhaps "The English Patient" will be on my library list soon.

So much to say that never leaves the deep recesses of my brain.

It's true, of course, but when I feel like saying something, of letting those crowded deep recesses rise to the surface, I am usually in the car or walking the dog or on my way to work. In other words, I am not near this typing device and thus nothing gets written. Words roll around in my head, ideas and thoughts that probably don't deserve to be shared anyway. But I do like to write, honestly. It's just that I don't do it often enough.

Sometimes I will go back and read something I wrote a long time ago, even ten years ago, and now and then I am surprised by the coherent nature of many of these blogs. It appears that occasionally I have penned damn good essays. Of course, each of those is countered by other exercises in triteness, so go figure.

All this is to say that I have not forgotten my little blog postings here and I will try and get back to writing more often. I actually have a couple of books to report on and a couple of recipes to share and more random observations on the nature of the life we are living. But since I am at work right now, it doesn't feel right to write about my real life at this moment. My real life isn't work, although sometimes it feels like work takes up space in my life that I would rather use for something else. 

More to follow. Thanks for reading. Below is a photo of the Mapparium, a huge glass globe constructed in 1935 at the Christian Science Monitor site in Boston. It is a globe that a person can walk through, perhaps the only one of its kind in the world. I walked through it about 30 years ago and was just explaining it to a young coworker and am delighted to see a photo of it online.