Thoughts and Observations

Program Notes You'll Never Read at Severance Hall

2010-03-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

From this weekend's concert of the Eureka Symphony, a subscription series concert entitled "A Guy You Love, A Guy You Don't Love & A Guy You Never Heard Of":

My program notes for this concert -- found on page 18 in the playbill -- describe Alexander Taneyev, whose second symphony we were intending to play. I wrote, "Alexander Sergeievich Taneyev is not to be confused with Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev, a distant cousin." In fact, they were confused. Our music supplier was asked for A. Taneyev's second symphony, but sent that of S. Taneyev. So now you need to know a bit about Sergei Taneyev.

The notes, by Dick LaForge, go on to describe how S. Taneyev's second symphony was both unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and how Sergei himself was considered "hopelessly conservative" by his more accomplished colleagues. It is somewhat surprising that the supplier had this music at his fingertips.

And yet, it was something of a happy surprise. Despite the members of the symphony, and its music director, being utterly unfamiliar with the work, it actually played to the strengths of the ensemble, showcasing the richness of the strings and lyrical beauty of the reeds without overexposing the brasses. The composition itself was fairly dull, but not inordinately so; certainly no duller than your average orchestral work by Tchaikovsky, Taneyev's teacher (and, presumably, the "guy you love," as the program also contained works by Tchaikovsky and Bartok). Although I can't begin to guess whether it worked out better than the intended performance of A. Taneyev's second symphony, I'd say the only disappointment was that they didn't change the title to "A Guy You Love, A Guy You Don't Love & A Guy WE Never Heard Of."

New Best Friends?

2010-02-28T12:43:00.001-08:00

At left is Boots, a very sweet cat who has been on this property almost his whole life. He moved here as a young'un with a couple who rented my house some number of years ago. They later moved to Eureka, into an apartment where cats were not welcome (such places should be razed, if you ask me), so Boots stayed behind as a mostly-outdoor pet for my landlord. Then around the first of this year, they moved down to the Bay Area and couldn't take their assemblage of cats, all of whom are now under my care. The others all have their own "homes" (three in the barn, a fourth in a little doghouse on the back porch of the main house), but poor Boots was shut out of his usual accommodation on the laundry porch of the main house, and became homeless. Since I was feeding him (on my back porch), he started more or less living around my house. He and Reggie (pictured at rear) have never gotten along very well, but Boots was just so pathetic and such a lover that I couldn't keep him out any longer. So I started to let him inside when he wanted in, deciding to just hope for the best.

Pictured above is "the best." So far, it looks like Reggie has decided that he can share his comforts with his less fortunate (and considerably elder) brother. Please welcome Boots into our little family.

When You're a Cat...

2010-02-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

...life is just a bed of clover.

Best of 2000s

2010-01-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here's my Top 50 Films of the 2000s, as submitted as part of an omnibus project on another website. You may note the absence of any 2009 films; you may also note that my tastes don't run to the commercial. Consequently, I have to wait for a film to reach DVD before I see it, and that rules out a lot of newer releases. Please add a comment telling us a) how many of these films you have seen, and b) how crazy, obstinate, and/or wrong-headed you think I am.

1. Treeless Mountain 2008 Kim So-yong
2. Still Walking 2008 Kore-eda Hirokazu
3. This Charming Girl 2004 Lee Yoon-ki
4. Yi Yi 2000 Edward Yang
5. Take Care of my Cat 2001 Jeong Jae-eun
6. Café Lumière 2003 Hou Hsiao-hsien
7. In the Mood for Love 2000 Wong Kar-wai
8. Eureka 2000 Aoyama Shinji
9. Vertical Ray of the Sun, the 2000 Tran Anh Hung
10. Vibrator 2003 Hiroki Ryuichi
11. Return, the 2003 Andrei Zvyagintsev
12. Oasis 2002 Lee Chang-dong
13. On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate 2002 Hong Sang-soo
14. Long Weekend in Pest & Buda, a 2003 Makk Karoly
15. One Fine Spring Day 2001 Hur Jin-ho
16. Man Who Wasn't There, the 2001 Coen Bros.
17. What Time is it There? 2001 Tsai Ming-liang
18. My Dear Enemy 2008 Lee Yoon-ki
19. Kabei (Our Mother) 2008 Yamada Yoji
20. Nobody Knows 2004 Kore-eda Hirokazu
21. Good Lawyer's Wife, a 2003 Im Sang-soo
22. Chunhyang 2000 Im Kwon-taek
23. Railroad, the 2007 Park Heung-shik*
24. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring 2003 Kim Ki-duk
25. Singles 2003 Kwon Chil-in (not to be confused with the Cameron Crowe 1992 film of the same name)
26. Lilya 4-Ever 2002 Lukas Moodysson
27. Still Life 2006 Jia Zhang ke
28. Maria Full of Grace 2004 Joshua Marston
29. Between Love and Hate 2006 Kim Hae-gon
30. Twilight Samurai, the 2002 Yamada Yoji
31. Into Great Silence 2005 Philip Gröning
32. Royal Tenenbaums, the 2001 Wes Anderson
33. Woman is the Future of Man 2004 Hong Sang-soo
34. Spirited Away 2001 Miyazaki Hayao
35. This is England 2006 Shane Meadows
36. Saving My Hubby 2002 Hyun Nam-seob (aka Be Strong, Geum-soon!, but not to be confused with the Korean TV series of this same name)
37. Clean 2004 Olivier Assayas
38. Saddest Music in the World, the 2004 Guy Maddin
39. Barking Dogs Never Bite 2000 Bong Joon-ho
40. Memories of Murder 2003 Bong Joon-ho
41. Time Out 2001 Laurent Cantet
42. Monday Morning 2002 Otar Iosseliani
43. Woman on the Beach 2006 Hong Sang-soo
44. Last Life in the Universe 2003 Pen-ek Ratanaruang
45. Circle, the 2000 Jafar Panahi
46. Ad-Lib Night 2006 Lee Yoon-ki
47. Secret Sunshine 2007 Lee Chang-dong
48. Tokyo Trash Baby 2000 Hiroki Ryuichi
49. Incredibles, the 2004 Brad Bird
50. Enfant, L' 2005 Dardenne Bros.

*Note to #23: There are two active Korean directors with this name, but imdb conflates them into one. This one is the director of The Railroad and The Twins. The other, more famous one directed (among others) My Sweet Seoul, My Mother the Mermaid, I Wish I Had a Wife Too, and Bravo My Life (aka Mommie Dearest). If you care.

No Comment

2010-01-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

I must say, getting no comments at all on the preceding seven DVD reviews is not what I was hoping for. Especially since I've posted links to them in three different places, trying to attract people who I thought might have an interest in the subject.

If you have any comments or feedback, positive or negative, please don't be shy.

My Rosy Life

2010-01-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

The final installment of the Korean Movie Classic Collection is 1994's My Rosy Life (or La Vie en Rose, 장미빛 인생), directed by Kim Hong-joon. It is set in Garabong, a suburb of Seoul, amid the student riots and general chaos of 1987 as the government prepared to host the 1988 Olympic Games. The story centers on a comic book shop which the proprietress (Choi Myeong-gil) uses as an illicit no-questions-asked shelter at night. Her shop is populated by a wide variety of down-and-outs, petty thieves, and others with no place to go who, for a small fee, can stretch out on the chairs, enjoy a bowl of noodles, and watch a late-night porno on the closed-circuit. In particular, three men are attracted to the shop and its "Madam:" Dong-pal (Choi Jae-sung), a small-time hood on the run from two or three different gangs; Yu-jin (Lee Ji-hyeong), a baby-faced writer whose latest work has made him an unwitting enemy of the state; and Ki-young (Cha Kwang-su), who harbors a secret that will upend all of their lives.

I really wanted to like this film. These are fairly well-thought-out characters thrown together at a very interesting place and time in modern Korean history. Unfortunately, there are just too many problems for the film to overcome.

The main problem is that the film revolves around the least interesting, most generic character, Dong-pal. Dong-pal is just a hood, like any other hood from any other Korean gangster film set in any time or place. Time spent with this character and his romance of the Madam (I'm not spoiling anything; that's Dong-pal and the Madam on the cover, shown above) is basically time wasted, when one considers the potentially much more interesting stories shunted aside to make room for him. In particular, the moment that Yu-jin reveals his secret, for all practical purposes his story ends, in favor of a "Yu-jin Becomes a Man" story which is utterly without interest.

A second problem, even more damning in my eyes, is that the first act of this central romance is Dong-pal's brutal rape of the Madam. I confess that I have very little tolerance for these "love-my-abuser" stories. At first, the Madam takes no action, the point being to demonstrate to us that she's a tough cookie; and anyway, she really can't turn him in to the police as she herself is running an illegal business. Besides, this is 1987 Seoul; you don't turn to the police for help, especially from their side of the tracks. Okay; fine. But Dong-pal immediately falls in love and (for lack of a better word) begins to stalk her, and this of course wears down her resistance over time. Spare me.

There are other issues, such as several laughably out-of-place martial arts fights (with sound effects straight out of the old Batman TV series; I kept expecting to see "OOF!" or "KA-WHAM!" spiral up from someone's kicked stomach), and the combined effect of them is to sink what had been a very promising premise.

Once again, we have an anamorphic 1.85:1 presentation that is crisp and clean, and a good 2.0 soundtrack in the original Korean. Subtitles are fine; much improved over the middle five titles from this boxset. Extras here include both a director's commentary track (unsubbed) and a 15-minute curiosity entitled "My Korean Cinema, Episode 8: Garabong, again." This 2006 item is nothing more than brief scenes from the film, in chronological order, presented wordlessly with a simple music track. Each brief scene is prefaced by a title card, on which the only things I could decipher were dates--evidently shooting dates, as each are from 1994. They're not outtakes or alternate scenes; each is from the film itself. I don't know how much sense it would make if one were to watch it without having seen the film; but maybe those title cards explain it all. There's also the usual trailer/poster/photo gallery.

The Avatamska Sutra

2010-01-24T14:45:00.001-08:00

Not being a Buddhist, I am going to find it quite difficult to describe the next film in the series, variously titled The Avatamska Sutra, Passage to Buddha, or its Anglicized Korean title, Hwaomkyung (화엄경). I imagine that a better grounding in Buddhist philosophy than I possess would enrich the viewer's experience, but even lacking that it's still an intriguing and beautiful film.

As it happens, I am currently reading a book in which the Dalai Lama explains some basic Buddhist concepts, and one of them seems quite pertinent to this film. "There can be two visions of the same thing," says His Holiness to the author Thomas Laird, "one of people who have a pure insight developed through spiritual practice and one that is purely conventional." He goes on to explain that both viewpoints can be true at the same time, even if the "uncommon viewpoint" is not verifiable by western standards.(*) All throughout this film are examples of things (mostly people) which are both as they seem and not as they seem.

On the surface, the story is about Sun Jae (Oh Tae-kyung), an 11-year old boy who, upon the death of his father, sets out to find his mother. Along the way he encounters a number of colorful characters, each of whom give him guidance in his quest. However, while Sun Jae is a young boy, at another level he is not. He seeks his mother, but who--or what--is his mother? The people, and even the cows, that he encounters are also, in the uncommon view, sattvas, placed in his path to assist him in his quest.

At the "common viewpoint" level, Sun Jae's travels illustrate director Jang Sun-woo's concern about the deteriorating state of postmodern Korean society. Sun Jae moves from construction sites to shanty towns to quarries to fishing piers, and nearly everyone he meets is poor or even entirely without possessions and living in at least some degree of squalor. Even the weather is uncomforting: wind and rain pelt him throughout the movie. Bustling modern Korea can often be seen on the horizon, but he knows, and we know, that Sun Jae will not find his "mother" there.

If this sounds like a gray, depressing, and difficult movie, it is not. (I told you it would be hard to describe!) It is beautifully photographed by You Yeong-gil, one of Korea's foremost cinematographers with a 70+ film career spanning from the late 1960s to Hur Jin-ho's Christmas in August, You's last feature before his untimely death. Even if the story (or stories) leave you befuddled, the film is worth viewing just for the images. The performances are strong throughout, most especially by young Oh Tae-kyung, who is onscreen virtually throughout the film and must cross some physically (and emotionally) difficult territory. There are a few of scenes that some viewers might find disturbing, one involving the slaughter of animals, the others involving the sexual awakening of the young boy-who-is-not-a-young-boy, so be forewarned. (This subject is covered with a little more depth in Adam Hartzell's review at koreanfilm.org, if you wish to know more.)

As with most of the other DVDs in this box, the picture is enhanced for widescreen TV from its 1.85:1 OAR, and looks lovely. The sound is a bit hissy, but that's not always out of place in a film where so many storms rage. The optional English subtitles, however, leave a lot to be desired. They're really no worse than the others in this series (Yeong-ja excepted), but in this film, the dialogue is much more crucial, and you're already expected to understand each line at two distinct levels, the "common" and "uncommon." Thus, when one encounters a subtitle like the one shown at right (click the screengrab to enlarge it), it can really throw you off your stride.

Even with the distracting subtitles, and the dense and multi-layered storyline, 90% of which I'm probably not getting, I still can recommend this DVD as one that will provide an interesting viewing experience.

(*)Thomas Laird, The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (Grove Press, New York, 2006, p. 5). Please excuse any formatting errors in this footnote; I lost my Strunk & White about 30 years ago!

The Road to the Race Track

2010-01-21T12:40:00.001-08:00

Cinema is a cerebral art form. Great cinema is not passive; it requires the active participation of the viewer to succeed. No matter how beautiful, or clever, or breathtaking a movie is, if it doesn't engage your mind, it may be great entertainment, but it can not be called a success on an artistic level. While The Road to the Race Track (경마장 가는길, 1991) has a number of flaws that keep me from being able to declare it a great work, one of them is not that it fails to stimulate the grey matter, and it can be recommended on that basis.

The plot, to the extent that this film has one, can be summarized quite easily. Having spent the last five years studying in France, "R" (Moon Sung-keun) returns to his native Korea, and is met at the airport by "J" (Kang Su-yeon) who seems somewhat less than excited to see him. R and J were lovers in France, having lived together for three and a half years until J's own return to Korea a year earlier. R clearly wants to dive back into what clearly was an intensely sexual relationship, but J is resistant. Confused and angered by her reaction, R dutifully treks to Daegu to visit his family, which we are surprised to learn includes a wife (Kim Bo-yeon) and two small children, but evinces little interest in remaining there. R quickly returns to Seoul and to J, and spends the remainder of the film attempting to rekindle their relationship. His methods, which range from smarmy to brutal, are at all times emotionally abusive, raising the question of why J keeps coming back for more. One reason is that R, who both parties agree ghost-wrote J's doctoral dissertation, has published a piece of literary criticism in Korea under her own name that was actually R's work. When he finds this out, R wastes no time in devising ways to use this fact as blackmail. R's wife refuses to grant R his divorce, a fact which J uses as an excuse to maintain a distance; R's marital status was not an issue when they were in France, but "this is Korea." J goes so far as to agree to marry another man who she has been seeing since her own return to Korea, but whether this is a serious relationship or just a threat to hold over R's head is an open question, the answer to which seems to change from moment to moment.

That this warring couple seems to be moving in circles, both emotionally and temporally, is not unintentional. Writer Ha Il-ji and director Jang Seon-woo attempted to express what they saw as a crisis of values in postmodern Korean society, and the circularity (or lack of progress) is a result of that moral breakdown. (For more analysis along these lines, see the KOFA page on this film, part of the "100 Korean Films" series.) It can be hard to know how much circularity is enough, however, and as a result I think this film could have survived about 20 minutes of judicious cuts. One scene in particular, involving R's attempts to remove a sash around J's waist, is both much too long and clumsily arranged.

This film perhaps could be seen as a Hong Sang-soo film with a much darker tone, and it comes as no surprise to learn that Hong was influenced by it. (KOFA) A more tangible connection to Hong's films is in the casting of Moon, who will be familiar to many viewers from his performance in Hong's Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors. Here he brings to life a character that is at once charming, reprehensible, and sympathetic, no mean feat. Across the table from Moon is Kang Su-yeon, one of the greatest actresses of her era and among the very first Korean performers to achieve international recognition; she won Best Actress awards for her roles in Im Kwon-taek's films The Surrogate Womb (Venice, 1987) and Come, Come, Come Upward (Moscow 1989).

The film is presented in a 16x9 enhanced 1.85:1 (really 1:78) format, with a stereo soundtrack in the original Korean, and both are fine. Subtitles are at about the same level as the previous few discs in this series; an example is provided at left. When he says "look me down," he means "look down on me." Similar problems with idiomatic expressions crop up with relative frequency (her response is "When the hack did I look you down?"), but they are easily overcome. Extra features are restricted to a trailer, poster, photo gallery, and a (Korean) filmography for the director and two leads. The disc is produced by Spectrum DVD, whereas the others in this series are all Taewon, but this doesn't seem to matter to the generally high quality of the presentations.

Portrait of Youth

2010-01-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

"Find the substance of your nihility."
This bit of wisdom is given to the hero of Portrait of Youth (젊은 날의 초상; aka Portrait of the Days of Youth) as he nears the completion of his quest for...for...for whatever the hell it is he's been questing for the previous two hours. It also might as well have been the order of the day for director Kwak Ji-kyun (Plum Blossom) and writer Jang Hyeon-su (who later directed Everybody Has Secrets) in this, the 1990 installment of the Korean Movie Classic Collection 1975-1994.

Jung Bo-seog (Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors) plays Young-hoon, a young man whose character is so sketchily laid out that I could describe him equally well as an aimless drifter, a lovelorn poet, or a radical in search of a cause. He's taciturn and introspective, speaking only rarely, which is a real handicap to the understanding of the film, given that he's the narrator. He drifts first to his brother's house, where he collects a little money from his mother's estate and is informed that he's "the hope of the family," then to a coal mine for no apparent reason, and thence to a college, where he takes up with two revolutionaries and courts a pretty but completely bourgeois co-ed. The relationship ends badly, and both of his radical friends die tragically. Driven by his demons, Young-hoon drifts away from the (now-closed) college into the countryside. He's haunted, but as it turns out not by any of the foregoing events, but rather by his having witnessed, as a boy, some illicit sex between his teacher and a local girl he had a crush on. He next has a chance encounter with this paramour at her father's funeral, but she escapes before Young-hoon has a chance to speak with her. He spends the next six hours of screen time (feels that way, anyway) trying to locate locating her. Along the way he encounters the Hooker With a Heart of Gold as well as an itinerant knife sharpener who seems to have wandered out of another century (and who provides the great advice quoted above), and together the three of them...well, they wander around for a while. Finally tracking down his puppy love, Young-hoon tearfully admits to her "I really don't know what's what." Brother, you said a mouthful!

The picture (1.85:1 anamorphic) and sound (Dolby 2.0) are fine; the cinematography by frequent Im Kwon-tael collaborator Jung Il-sung matches the mood of the film with lots of long shots in gray skies or darkness, rain or snow. The disc is graced with the usual not-so-special features: trailer, poster, and photo gallery. With each film in this series, moving forward chronologically, it seems that the subtitling gets a little worse. There were more obvious mistakes here, but as before it's not something that will harm your understanding of the film. Of course, I have exactly zero understanding of this film; the subtitled dialogue may as well have been from another movie for all the good it did me. (After 45 minutes had elapsed, I was so lost that I actually skipped backwards chapter by chapter, hoping that the disc might have skipped one somehow. It hadn't.) It's not that uncommon for a film to be so wrapped up in symbolism and metaphor that its deeper meaning entirely escapes me; for all I know, Young-hoon represents Man's Inhumanity to Man, while the hooker Miss Yoon is The Plight of the Korean People. Somebody obviously appreciates it; KOFA thought it should be part of this series of "classics," and it did win a Best Film award at a festival (the 1991 "Grand Bell Awards"). So although this film may not exactly run to my tastes, your mileage may vary.

[WARNING--POTENTIAL SPOILER]
Maybe this will help clear things up: towards the end of the film, Jung-hoon leans up against a tree and (as the narrator) says "It's time to end the play. Existence doesn't exist without continuation. A glass of wine should be emptied. Despair is the real start of existence."

I dunno; maybe it's just that my nihility is too substanceless.

The Eel Sea

2010-01-19T11:13:00.001-08:00

After two days of steady, hard rain, the usually insignificant Eel River looks like an inland sea. Note the standing water even in the pasture on this side of the river's edge. And we have rain forecast every day for the rest of the week, courtesy of El Niño. Time to start building that ark!

Gagman

2010-01-18T22:55:00.000-08:00

Gagman (개그맨), Lee Myeong-se's directorial debut of 1988 (or 1989, depends on who you ask; I'm trusting KOFA on this one), is the next feature in the Korean Movie Classics Collection. As noted above, this is a second collaboration of Lee, co-writer (and, here, co-star) Bae Chang-ho, and actors Ahn Sung-ki and Hwang Shin-hye, following but entirely unrelated to the 1987 melodrama Our Joyful Young Days. It's difficult to find just one little box in which to classify this action-comedy-gangster-Hollywood tribute-fantasy film. At least for 1988 in South Korea, it was one of a kind, and a terrific film (that, evidently, nobody saw.)

Ahn plays Lee Jong-sae, a nightclub comic/emcee who has based his act on Chaplin's Little Tramp to such a degree that his own personality has become subsumed into it. Despite taking on the outward appearance, and some of the mannerisms, of the Tramp, he does not aspire to the stardom of his idol. Instead, he sees himself as a director, a true genius of the cinema in an age that has forgotten what genius looks like. (This, despite the fact that his film career consists of having sent one script to one studio, without response.) While performing his silent Chaplin-homage routine on stage, his internal monologue is lamenting that "this great world of ours [has] come to value wads of cash over true feeling and romance" becoming a "barren, lifeless, and emotionless wasteland. What can a genius like myself do for times like these?" he asks himself while twirling an imaginary cane and mugging for his not-very-attentive audience. Lee, the film's narrator, occupies a world that is a mixture of reality and fantasy, and as he can no longer clearly discern the dividing line, neither can we.

His barber, Moon Do-seok (Bae), quickly falls into Lee's mixed-up world when Lee suggests that Moon should star in his next picture. Moon, who wants nothing more than to be a movie star ("I started watching movies from the time I was conceived," he says), immediately sells his shop, has eyelid surgery, and places himself completely at Lee's disposal. Moon's main talent, apart from shaving Lee's forehead, appears to be bathroom-going. It can be inferred that, shall we say, he does not possess a complete supply of hot towels.

Unable to make any headway at the studio (where he is viewed as a trespasser), Lee takes refuge in a cinema one afternoon to enjoy a screening of Coppola's The Cotton Club, when the beautiful Oh Sun-young (Hwang) literally drops into his lap. She is on the run from her gangster boyfriends, and cajoles Lee into letting her come home with him. Once there, she takes up residence among the many movie posters and pieces of Chaplin memorabilia, agrees that she should star in his picture, and generally starts minxing her way around like, well, like a fantasy.

One evening when Lee is rehearsing his routine in the closed nightclub, he is interrupted by a deserting soldier who gives him his weapons and ammunition before disappearing (literally, exiting, stage right.) Back at the apartment, Sun-young discovers the firearms and suggests that he should use them to rob a bank, thereby acquiring the capital to finance his film which will make her a star. At this point, the film swings from a broad comedy to a gangster picture, albeit a comedic one, seeing as they are a terrifically inept gang. We follow their criminal career to its end, which I won't spoil for you here.

Overall, the film is great fun from start to finish, and the final scene contains a twist that makes you reconsider everything that went on before it in a new light. The performances are first rate. Ahn is consigned to playing a character who is playing a character, never an easy task, but after a while you stop seeing Chaplin and start seeing Lee, and that is tough to do. Hwang is excellent as the young gangster's moll who is also the brains of the outfit. Bae, in one of just three on-screen appearances of his career, is riotous in his role as the village idiot.

Lee Myeong-se has gone on to direct a total of eight features, one every few years or so, including 1999's critically acclaimed Nowhere to Hide (again with Ahn). Gagman is presented in an anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1 ratio, with a Dolby Digital stereo track, and both are excellent. Less good are the subtitles, which are complete and well-timed but exhibit a fair number of typos. Not Panorama-bad, mind you--there was an Anglophone involved somewhere in the process--but they are a little distracting. Unlike the first two DVDs in the box, here there is no commentary track, as the extra features are limited to a trailer, poster, and small photo gallery.

Our Joyful Young Days

2010-01-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

The second film in the series is entitled Our Sweet Days or Our Joyful Young Days (기쁜 우리 젊은 날, Gippeun wuri jeolmeun-nal), a 1987 film directed and co-written by Bae Chang-ho (배창호). Maybe there was something novel about this script in 1987 (I doubt it), but it's certainly been made a thousand or more times since then. It goes like this: Pathetic Loser falls in love with Dream Girl, and starts Stalking her. DG, who really should get a Restraining Order, instead is Gently Standoffish. PL persists. DG Goes Away, and PL is crushed. DG returns, and PL runs into her Quite by Accident. It turns out that DG Has Issues of Her Own. And so forth. Believe me, if you've ever seen a Korean melodrama, you know exactly where this is going, and even if you haven't, when it reaches what seems like a relatively happy ending point and there's still a half-hour to go, well, consider yourself warned.

The Pathetic Loser is played by the always reliable Ahn Sung-ki, veteran of more films than I can count, including some of Im Kwon-taek's better films (Festival, The Taebaek Mountains), huge hits like Lee Jang-ho's Eoudong, and classics like The Housemaid (made when he was 8) and Chilsu and Mansu. Ahn is still active today, taking elder statesman roles in such films as Im's Chihwaseon and Kang Woo-suk's Hanbando. Here, Ahn is asked to be the emotionally stunted, unsure and klutzy Young-min, and he doesn't do much with this thankless role. It might have been nice to see some emotional growth over the two hour running time; nowadays that would be expected from this genre, as it makes the emotional payoff in the final scene either richer or more sappy, depending on your tastes. Ahn, who is now and was then a better actor than he shows here, instead just mugs and cries his way to the inevitable conclusion. Opposite Ahn is the positively luminous Hwang Cine (or Hwang Shin-hye, 황신혜) in her film debut. Hwang was, for a time, Park Chul-soo's muse, appearing in five of his films in the 1990s, and while still active today, is perhaps better known for having a line of lingerie named for her. Here, she is mostly required to look both beautiful and unapproachable, and she has no trouble whatsoever with these requirements. Her role should actually have been the more interesting of the two (as I said above, she Has Issues), but her character is one-dimensional, existing just so Young-min has something to react to. Had this film been written from Hye-rin's POV, it would have doubtless been a better, or at least more interesting, film. Ah, well.

It's not a terrible film, and is certainly well made with some very good compositions here and there. If I had seen this in 1987, before I grew bone-weary of this genre, I'm sure I would have liked it a lot better than I do today. I wouldn't buy the box solely for this film, but it wouldn't keep me from buying it, either. And anyway, there's really nothing wrong with looking at Hwang Cine, "the most perfect face in Korea," for two hours, now is there?*

All the major players here (Bae, Ahn, Hwang, and co-screenwriter Lee Myung-se) will reunite the following year for Gagman, Lee's directorial debut and the next film in this series. I'm somewhat less than breathless in anticipation.

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 ratio, sort of; it's enhanced for 16x9, making the display ratio actually 1.78:1, but I won't quibble. The print, apart from a few speckles, looks very good. Audio (Dolby Digital stereo) has a hiss, but it is also quite good. Subtitles are also good; perhaps not quite as good as those in Yeong-ja's Heydays; "in" and "on" get mixed up occasionally, and there's a laugh-out-loud moment when the name Lee Strasberg shows up as 'Lee Streetsbourg', but these are minor issues. Again there is an unsubbed director's commentary track, as well as a trailer, poster, and photo gallery.

*Most of this background information on Hwang is taken from Darcy Paquet's brief profile of her at the indispensible koreanfilm.org, which is also the source of the photo of Hwang used above. Now excuse me while I go buy a Hwang Cine thong...

Yeong-ja's Heydays

2010-01-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

One of my original intentions when starting this blog was to dabble in film reviews. I've started to review the contents of a box set of "Korean Movie Classics" for another site, and decided that I should cross-post them here as a way of fulfilling that original goal.

The first title is from 1975 and is variously titled Young ja: On the Loose (that's what the keepcase says) or Yeong-ja's Heydays (the name I commonly find on the internet); the Korean title is "영자의 전성시대" (Yeongja-ui jeonseongsidae). It was written and directed by KIM Ho-seon (김호선); according to KMDb, it was his second feature as a director in a career that ran to 15 films over 22 years; I admit I've never heard of him or any of his films. However, according to Darcy Paquet, this was the fourth biggest box-office hit of the 1970s in Korea. I'm not surprised, as it is quite salacious considering what South Korea ca. 1975 was like. (Kim was also responsible for the biggest hit of the 1970s, 1977's Winter Woman [겨울여자]).

We first meet Yeong-ja as she is being dragged in in yet another roundup of prostitutes from one of the seedier neighborhoods of Seoul. In the police station, by chance she encounters Chang-su, her would-be boyfriend of three years ago, who is just back from serving in Vietnam. We quickly embark on a lengthy flashback, tracing Yeong-ja's long strange trip from fresh-faced maid to sweatshop seamstress to bar hostess and finally to bus conductress, where tragedy strikes as it so often does in Korean melodrama. Left with no other choice, pretty but maimed Yeong-ja succumbs to the vortex of prostitution that has been tugging at her sleeve ever since she got fired from her housemaid job (for being wanton; i.e. the no-good son of the manor raped her.) The rest of the film chronicles first Chang-su's and then Yeong-ja's attempts to make a better life for themselves. It's a pretty standard story, although it does produce a somewhat non-standard ending; but for me, the story is not the appeal of the film.

The appeal is chiefly in the performance of Yeom Bok-sun (염복순), who is superb as Yeong-ja. She is asked to play any number of emotional registers, ranging from naif to slut to suicide to determined woman, and most of the time she has to feign a handicap to boot. Despite the intense scenery-chewing going on all around her all the time, she manages to keep all of the manifestations of Yeong-ja's changing personality under control and delivers a nuanced performance. In those two opening scenes, for example, she first appears as a foul-mouthed hooker in the hoosegow, and then (in the flashback) as an angel-faced fawn suddenly out of the woods and in the Big City, and it wasn't until it the second scene was over that I realized that it was the same actress playing both parts. I can't find much online about Yeom, except that it seems that her short career had come to an end by 1979 after making about 10 films in five years.

The film is presented in the OAR of 2.35:1, enhanced for widescreen. The print was in reasonably good condition; some damage shows up, most especially in outdoor shots near the end of the film, when the print is so speckled that you momentarily wonder if Yeong-ja is going to have to endure a plague of crows on top of everything else she's been through. Similarly the mono track will disappoint the audiophiles, as there's an ever-present hiss and some cracks and pops, and seems to sit a little too far forward, but none of this bothered me; in fact, I might not have noticed them were I not planning to write this review. Full disclosure: I don't give two hoots about this sort of stuff.

There is a director's commentary track, which is unsubtitled; all the more reason to learn Korean. Apart from that, there's no other extras.

One film in, and I'm already glad I got this set.

More on this film from KOFA (warning: spoilers).

I Got REALLY Lucky

2010-01-14T09:35:00.001-08:00

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/12/thoughts-and-prayers-haiti

A Tapestry of Natural Phenomena

2010-01-11T15:58:00.000-08:00

A geology professor up at the university estimates that there is a 78% probability of a 5.0 aftershock within seven days of the main quake (which was Saturday at 4:30pm), and a 5-10% chance of an even larger (than 6.5) temblor in that period. The fact that there were seven quake events of at least 6.2 magnitude in a 10-month period of 1991-92 (see post below) does not fill me with comfort.

We did have some damage here after all. One of the massive water tanks, which holds the water pumped up from the well down by the river, shifted sometime during or after the quake. The now-tilting tank put some pressure on a PVC pipe, which pulled at this joint and that, causing one of the joints to snap. I first noticed problems with the water yesterday, when it was milky and seemed almost carbonated, but didn't think anything of it. This morning, however, the pressure in my shower was noticeably less, and it was spitting and coughing, indicating the presence of air in the pipes. I talked to my landlord about it, and we went to investigate in the pump house, where we saw the break. It's being repaired now, but I've been without water all day.

Water is soon not going to be in short supply, as the sky has gotten apocalyptically dark. There's a big thunderstorm on the radar just offshore (it's probably raining on the quake's epicenter right now), biding its time before coming ashore and beginning the three days of predicted rain.

So after feeling the earth move under my feet, soon we'll have the sky tumbling down (a-tumbling down.) I just hope I don't lose control, down to my very soul, and get hot and cold, all over, all over, all over, all over.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

2010-01-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

We had another 4.1 aftershock at about 10:30 last night. I was reading in bed at that time and didn't notice a thing. I have, however, begun to notice, or perhaps imagine, subtle shaking from time to time. It might be little aftershock, or it might just be my blood pressure; who can say?

I hope the worst is over for this event, but a disquieting history lesson was dropped on my doorstep this morning (see left; click to enlarge.) I don't know about you, but by the end of April 1992, I'd have moved the hell outta here.

(The table is published in today's edition of the Times-Standard.)

I Got Lucky

2010-01-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

My friends L&D live in Eureka, and I have not been able to reach them by telephone. So today I decided to drive up there to make sure everything was all right. When I got there, it was immediately obvious that they were gone for the weekend (mail in the mailbox, car gone, etc.), so I decided I should check on the cats and make sure there wasn't anything (like a gas leak) that needed immediate attention. Using the spare key, I let myself in and looked around.

First and foremost, I located all three cats, and they were safe and healthy, their normal selves. They had food and clean water and were fine. There were no gas leaks, the power was on, and there seemed to be no immediate danger to anyone.

While there was no significant damage, most every room in the house was a jumble of fallen and broken items. In the dining room (above right; click on the picture to enlarge it), a curio shelf had collapsed, taking numerous china pieces to their doom. The kitchen was a mess of broken glass, and the bathroom had toiletries all over the place. But the TV was upright, and so were all the stereo components, and even the Christmas tree!

I went upstairs, where they have two rooms that are mostly just used for storage. One of them was a mess, but it's always a mess, and we won't go into that. :) The other, however, looked like a very selective miniature tornado had visited it (left.) A big filing cabinet had fallen over and spilled its contents, and a number of books had fallen off bookshelves. However, most of the books were still in their proper places, evidently undisturbed.

All throughout the house, almost every cabinet door, closet door, or room door that could be open was open. To my mind, this seems to defy the randomness of the event. I can see why the shaking would swing closed doors open, but why would at least some of them not then swing shut again?

Anyway, I took some pictures and otherwise left the mess alone. They may want to document the state of the place for insurance purposes, and/or just see what the aftermath of a 6.5 looks like. Furthermore, it wouldn't be up to me to decide what is garbage and what should be kept for possible repair. I decided that the best course of action was to leave a message about the condition, offer my cleanup help when they want it, and otherwise leave things as they were.

Nineteen Hours Later

2010-01-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

"Earthquake? What earthquake?"

Earthquake Preparedness

2010-01-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

After today's magnitude 6.5 temblor, the epicenter of which was maybe 30 miles from my house, I have earthquake preparedness on my mind. I'm feeling pretty good, since this was a fairly major event and my only damage was a broken vinegar bottle. But despite the fact that lots of people appear to feel that this was the biggest quake in memory (I suppose those who don't feel that way don't get quoted by the media), there's likely bigger ones on the way in this, the most seismically active area of the continental USA. So I can't help thinking of this as a great test of my readiness for the Big One.

My initial reaction was that a very, very big truck which had escaped my notice was rumbling past the house. It was more the noise, a very loud, low rumble, than the shaking that I noticed, at least for a second or so. Then the nearly full vinegar bottle fell from its perch to the kitchen counter, broke into many pieces, and then hit the floor. It was the only item to fall from my open kitchen shelves (pictured at right), but it was enough to wake me up to what was really going on. I immediately know I had to find my glasses, which as per usual I was not wearing. Fortunately, they were next to me in the spot they always are when I sit at the computer, and I was level-headed enough to know that. Next, oddly enough, I thought of my disaster stash of water and food, and got up to go fetch it. That idea was dismissed as idiotic almost immediately, but as the stash is in the pantry, I found myself standing in the doorway, which I judged to be a good idea. Thinking a bit more, I decided a better place to be would be outside, as this is a very rural area and there's nothing that could fall on me out there. I think by this time the shaking had stopped, but nevertheless I went outside, grabbing my car keys (which hang on a hook by the door) on the way.

I stayed outside for a few minutes, during which Reggie (the cat), in a full-blown panic, hurled himself at one of the windows, trying to get out. I decided not to let him out, reasoning that in his agitated state he may run away and get lost. In hindsight, I'm still not sure what I should have done. Had the house collapsed with him inside, I would of course feel terrible, but I wonder what the chances of that happening would be. I certainly could not have collected him; if he got out he was going to run somewhere, fast. What would have happened then I can't say. As it was, unable to escape, Reggie ran under the bed and stayed there for about two hours. Reggie's usually "large and in charge" around here, but today he was revealed as a true "scairdy cat."

After a couple of minutes, my neighbor came out of his house and waved at me. I waved back, and walked down to talk to him. It was at this time that I realized that, not only did I not know what was going on more than 100 yards from my home, I had no good way of finding out, since I didn't think I had a working radio and in any case had no idea of the local radio frequencies. It turns out that my satellite radio has AM and FM dials, and it does pick up some stations, so I now have to make a list of the local frequencies so I know where to tune to get information when I need it.

This is an area that, I believe, is well-prepared for the Big One. This summer, the local university in conjunction with a few alphabet-soup governmental agencies published the brochure pictured above left, and it went into wide circulation. I got a copy with my local newspaper, then a second with the alternative weekly paper, and I suppose it was made available--or even force-fed--in a number of different ways as well. Plus, just a week or two ago someone in one of these papers published an op-ed about waiting for the Big One. So this is not really news to any of us, even a newbie like me.

But I'm not satisfied with my preparations, some of which I now need to re-think. There's the radio, and the cat, but also there's my emergency stash. I presently have it in my pantry, on the top shelf. Nothing happened to it today, but of course today's event was not wicked enough for me to need it. (The electricity went out but came right back on; my coffeemaker didn't even forget the time. I never lost either water or gas, both of which are local--that is, gas is in a tank outside, and water comes in pipes from a tank up the hill.) If we had a Big One, over 7.0 say, I think it's a reasonably good chance that I won't be able to get to the stash through the wreckage of the pantry. I'm not sure, however, where a better place would be, except perhaps for my car, which is likely to make it through any temblor unscathed. I'm not so sure I want to tote all that stuff around all the time, but I'll have to consider it.

I do like how easily accessible my car keys were, and that I thought of grabbing them. Around here, I could probably just leave them in the ignition, but this is next best. I didn't grab anything else, but I don't really have any "important papers"--most of my financial life exists on-line, and I have no homeowner's/renter's insurance (not offered this far from a fire station.) I might want to find a more convenient spot for my wallet, but otherwise I'm not concerned about papers.

So all in all, I think I'd give myself a 'B' for this preparedness test. And now I'm better prepared when the Big One rumbles through.

I can't say that for poor Reggie, though. I think he was eating when the quake struck, and it totally freaked him out. Now he's a little afraid to go back into that small room (the laundry room.) I hope and expect that he'll forget all about it by tomorrow.

Esq.

2010-01-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

"Look. I practice the law. I'm not only willing but anxious to sue anyone, anytime, for anything." The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, written and directed by Preston Sturges (1944).

I Pay My Bills Online

2009-12-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

Today's mail delivery included the following items:

1) A copy of The Battle of Chile, Patricio Guzman's three-part documentary, just released on DVD;
2) An unlooked-for check for $61.xx, evidently my proceeds from some class-action suit of which I was unaware; and
3) My credentials for admission to the State Bar of California, indicating that I have now completed all of the requirments and have only to take the attorney's oath of office.

Which of these should be the most exciting?

Perception is Reality

2009-12-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

One of these figures indicates a lovely, shirtsleeve day, while the other suggests bundle-up-in-a-warm-sweater chilliness. Hmmm.

It's Too Darn Hot

2009-12-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

I'm still learning the nuances of heating with this wood stove.

And I haven't any lox, either

2009-12-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

I have three bagles left: one asiago cheese, and two multi-grain covered with all sorts of seeds. I don't especially care for the seedy ones, especially since the caraway seeds kind of overwhelm all the other flavors, and I love-love-love the cheesy ones. But all three have to be eaten, and soon. So which do I eat this morning?

Ponder that question as I try to dislodge this caraway seed from my wisdom tooth.

The Dark End of the Street, Epilogue

2009-12-09T09:34:00.001-08:00

It was a particularly frosty night, but I had a very big log on the fire, and the indoor temperature was about 75 degrees at 3am. This is what it was at 9am.

Brrrrr.

Why the South Ain't Gonna Rise Again, Reason #2,753

2009-12-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Southerners can't count.

“I am running for one reason and one reason only, and that is to change a state headed in the wrong direction and to come back here and raise grandchildren.” -- Roy Barnes, candidate for Governor of Georgia, as quoted in the New York Times, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009, Page A1 of the New York edition.

The Dark End of the Street

2009-11-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

My house is perched on the eastern edge of a riverbluff, with expansive and breathtaking eastward views over the Eel River and to the Coast Range beyond.

To the north I have a hedge, which was about 15 feet tall before my landlord trimmed it last month. At its new height of about 8 feet, I can see into the adjacent sheep pasture (now occupied by geese) and to the main house beyond. I can also see the river course for some miles in this direction, enabled by my large picture window.

On the west, my view is mostly of the rest of the bluff, the lower third of which is the main sheep pasture (this one occupied by sheep). The bluff rises up to its maximum height, perhaps another 100 or 150 feet, fairly steeply, which means my sunsets come backwards: when the sun sinks beyond the bluff, which is by 4pm this time of year, it's still sunny in the river valley to my east.

But the main problem is to the south, where there is a copse rising from the edge of the bluff to a maximum height of about 30 feet. It's lovely in the summer, and I guess it's still lovely, but it's only about 20 feet from my house, and that means that, for the past month or so, the arc of the sun has not risen above the treeline when seen from my house. That means that my house, or at least the portion of my house inhabited by humans rather than bats, receives no direct sunlight for a little less than half the year. This perpetual darkness means that my house can get very cold, even when it's not very cold outside.

My only source of heat is my wood-burning stove. If I stoke the fire at bedtime high enough to last the night, which I'm not sure is possible, it makes the house as hot as a Turkish bath. If I do not do this, and the fire dies in the wee hours of the morning, the house cools off so rapidly and thoroughly that it stays refrigerator-like all the next day. The third way is to keep the fire at a house-warming low level all night, but generally I sleep too deeply to wake up every two or three hours to add a log to the embers.

I guess the fourth way is to learn to enjoy the darkness and chill, and wait paitently for the sun's return in March.

Arlo & Janis skewers the NFL

2009-11-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

Today's Arlo & Janis strip perfectly illustrates the two reasons I've lost all interest in the NFL:

Click on the 'toon to see a larger (i.e. readable) image at Comics.com.

Cricket Saves My Computer

2009-11-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

At 6:30 this morning, the fairly strong winds of an approaching storm blew some branches into a powerline across the street (in the sheep pasture), causing first the fuses and then the transformer to blow. We were without power for nine hours as tree-trimming and transformer-replacing crews toiled in the rain. When power was restored, and I reset a tripped breaker, I discovered that my microwave oven had been, well, nuked by the power surge. The microwave is the only electrical item of any significance that was not plugged into a surge protector; it was plugged directly into the wall outlet. (I'm not completely stupid, but I am lazy: I had a surge protector for that outlet, but when I moved my refrigerator out of the kitchen and into the pantry, where there are no grounded outlets, I realized I had to string two surge-protecting power strips together for the 'fridge to reach a grounded outlet. One of those strips came from the kitchen counter, and all good intentions to replace it were quickly forgotten.) So now I need a new microwave; no big deal, as this one was getting pretty old and may not have lasted much longer.

However, it soon occurred to me that the microwave was not the only appliance in harm's way. On almost any other night, my laptop would also have been plugged directly into the wall (and being a Wednesday night, it'd've been left on to run some utility programs overnight.) I blanch to think what my mental state would be if this very expensive laptop which is essential in so many different ways had been converted into a smoking doorstop. But good fortune, a very infrequent visitor in this house, was in my pocket last night, and it's all because of cricket.

You see, I've fallen in love with cricket, and have slavishly watched every moment of the recent 5-match ODI series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The final match, played today in Chittagong, which was last night California-time (and which was won by Bangladesh in thrilling fashion), was telecast beginning at 6:30pm yesterday. (If you are wondering, I can watch such things on the web via the site ESPN360.com, the only good thing ever to come from the Worldwide Leader.) Zimbabwe, batting first, survived their entire allotment of 50 overs, which meant that their half of the innings lasted until something like 11pm my time. Not wanting to miss Bangladesh's turn at the strike, I took the computer to bed with me--where the available outlet is a surge-protected one. When the match ended, at about 3am, I considered returning the laptop to its usual place, but opted to just leave it on the dresser, still plugged into the power strip (because it was still running, as noted above.)

Had it not been for that fifth match of the Grameenphone Cup, my laptop would be a smoldering piece of toast right now, and so would my psyche. Cricket is my new favorite sport.

Pictured: Bangladesh allrounder Shakib al Hasan, source http://www.deshiweb.com/cricket/shakib-takes-top-spot-among-odi-allrounders/

Menu Management for Morons

2009-10-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

I bought a quart of milk today, to replace the one that passed its exipry date about 7 weeks ago. Since this milk is fresh, I want to make mashed potatoes for dinner. I also have leftover peas in the fridge that need to be eaten. So which leftover entree should I have, the beef or the pork? Easy. Alliterative alimentation requires that I have Pork with my Peas and Potatoes. The beef will just have to wait for another day, one on which I feel like making Brown rice and steaming Broccoli.

But wait...crisis...the beef is leftover Pot roast...

Maybe I should just go out for Pizza and Pepsi with a chaser of Pepto-bismol.

We Need National Single-Payer Health Care!

2009-10-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is trivial in the grand scheme of things. But I got a replacement credit card today, and my health insurance is auto-paid on this credit card, so I need to update that payment information to put in the new expiration date. You'd think this would be easy, since after all I'm trying to give them money for which they've done nothing. But no. They have a website, but there's no place to access payment information, there's no FAQs on the subject, there's no way to contact customer service online, and it gives no phone numbers or email addresses. I have an insurance card, and it has about a half-dozen phone numbers, but none of them are relevant to my problem (at least, not on the face), and I just know that if I get on the phone I'm never getting off again.

If the insurance company can't even provide an easy way to do this simple task, how can I expect them to help me out when I really need help?

This is why I have never used this insurance--I'm paying for nothing, really. I'm terrified that even a simple visit to a doctor for a hello-how-are-you checkup will put me into such a hell of claims processing that my stress level will go through the roof, necessitating a visit to the psychiatrist or cardiologist or (probably) both. I maintain this insurance solely for catastrophic (to my bank account) occurrences.

So I'm just not going to update this expiration date. If they need it, they know where to find me. God forbid an insurance company go unpaid, even for a day, so I'm sure they'll find me.

If we just had health care provided by our government, like all civilized countries, this wouldn't be stressing me out. Call it single-payer, call it "public option," call it socialism if you want to, but just get it done!

Stupid Sports Clichés, Vol. 63,905

2009-10-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

After Idaho scores on a long pass play to go ahead of Hawai'i 14-7 early in the game:
"Get your safety belts on--this one's gonna be a shootout!"
I guess that's a drive-by shootout?

Cathartic Columbus Day

2009-10-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

Happy End (해피엔드), dir. Jung Ji-woo (정지우), 1999.

It can't be just dumb luck that this would be the film I chose to watch on Columbus Day of all days. (For the uninitiated, today would have been my 18th wedding anniversary. Columbus Day is far and away my least favorite day of the year.) I don't want to give too much away about this film, lest any of you should decide to see it (highly recommended); suffice to say it was a cathartic experience for me. And I now have an answer to the oft-posed question "who would you choose to play you in a movie?"

Choi Min-shik plays Min-gi, a down-on-his-luck banker. He's recently out of work, and is doing a fairly lousy job of coping, spending hours reading (but not buying) romance novels at a fabulous used bookstore, or sitting like a dead thing in front of his TV set, watching cheap soap operas or football matches. His wife Bora, played by the fabulous Jeon Do-yeon, has a successful career (it's not clear, but she may have only returned to the professional ranks as a result of Min-gi's unemployment) and looks at her husband with a mixture of disgust and regret. Their only interaction seems to consist of her nagging him about his housekeeping, about his motivation, about his hobbies. Oh, and by the way she's having a torrid affair with her former boyfriend, who just so happens to be her employee.

I mean, really, stop me if you've heard any of this before, mm'kay? There are two major differences between this couple and my own marriage, though: they have a little baby (although it is far from clear who the father of the baby actually is), and Jeon Do-yeon is hot, hot, hot.

Min-gi is a perfectionist, cutting up empty milk cartons for recycling and recording mileage on the family car in an ever-present notebook. This is purported to be the banker in him coming out, although it seems closer to OCD. This close observation of the mundane in his mundane life provides him with several clues towards his wife's infidelity. At first he just back-catalogs these signs; if my own experience is of any relevance, it is because he genuinely doesn't want to know where that road might lead. But before long, the mounting evidence can no longer be ignored.

Here, about halfway through, is where the movie stops being about me, and starts being about the me I so wish I could have been.

Min-gi never directly confronts Bora about what he suspects (at least, not yet), but rather than continuing to stumble over clues, he starts to investigate. And although Bora admonishes her lover for not being careful about hiding their liaison, she's the one who makes the key mistakes (no pun intended), and Min-gi's investigation is quick, easy, and thorough. Still Min-gi takes no action, until one evening when Bora is forced to choose between her lover and her baby, and makes the wrong choice. This pushes Min-gi to the point of action. I can't tell you what that action is without spoiling the film, and I'm not sure I can even hint at it. Suffice to say that it's lifted straight out of many fantasies I have had over the past five years. I'm glad I saw this at home on DVD, because had it been in a theatre, my loud and sustained cheering might easily have been misinterpreted.

And that is, of course, where this stops being a film review and starts being a personal response. If I were coldly, objectively reviewing this movie, which frankly I think I would be unable to do, I might object to the resolution as being misogynist even for a misogynistic society like Korea. (Jung does, however, go to great lengths to both masculinize and demonize the character of Bora, for what it's worth; she's not just a cheatin' wife.) While objectively I can't condone the actions of Min-gi the Korean banker, subjectively I cheer on--lustily--the actions of Min-gi the Fiddlesticks doppelganger.

Jeon is wonderful in her role, as she is every time out of the box. Although she is appreciated in a smallish circle of cinephiles (she has been honored with a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival), Jeon is a great star who deserves to be much more well-known worldwide than she is. I imagine I could stop people in downtown Eureka all day and night and ask them who Jeon Do-yeon is without getting one correct answer, and that's a shame, especially since they'd all know who Paris Hilton is.

But despite Jeon's great (and oh-by-the-way frequently unclothed) performance, this is Choi Min-shik's film right from his first appearance in the bookstore. Choi was a well-known as a tough guy at the time of this film's release (he had played the ultimate North Korean bad guy in Shiri earlier that year), and this performance is very much against his type, both from his earlier work and his physical presence. Consistent with his character's moods, he rarely speaks, but still clearly conveys everything Min-gi is thinking and feeling through his performance. He is simply outstanding. Fans worldwide who only know this great actor through his subsequent star-making performance in Park Chan-wook's Oldboy (2003) might not believe that this is the same actor.

I've had this on my shelf for over a week now, and delayed watching it for one reason or another, until deciding this afternoon that this is the night. I had no idea how appropriate it would be. I anticipate that this will be my regular Columbus Day movie from now on. And tonight, I'll have happy dreams.

And What of the Ukulele?

2009-09-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

Why is it that you can go to concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic or Philadelphia Orchestra for 100 years and never encounter a guitar concerto, but you can't go 100 minutes on a classical radio station without one?

On Movie-Watching and Television

2009-09-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

I'm house-sitting once again this weekend, sharing my days and nights with a television that gets hundreds of channels. (For those not tuned into my life, I have no TV reception at all at my house.) For years now my TV watching has been limited almost exclusively to sports and old movies. This weekend, I've seen lots of sports, ranging from soccer (Uruguay vs. Columbia) to college football (Ohio State vs. USC) to the LPGA (P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship). But the sporting events, at least those that interest me, have concluded, and I'm idly surfing the channels looking for a movie to watch.

Now, here's the rub. This TV is a 42" LCD that has a Blu-ray player hooked up to it, which means that the viewing experience is far, far better than on my little 20" set up the road. I have all of my (dozen or so) BDs with me, plus a couple of DVDs from the top of my need-to-watch pile. So why am I surfing? Why don't I just put in a disc? I passed by The Bourne Ultimatum on the program guide, and caught myself thinking "yeah, that's an okay movie, I could watch that." But I own that movie, and if it were sitting here next to Fallen Angels, which I brought with me, I wouldn't think twice about which one to watch. Furthermore, if I'd come across Fallen Angels on the program guide, I'd have thought "oooh, great, I'm dying to see that" and immediately switched it on. But I didn't, and rather than turn on the DVD player and starting the Wong film, I find myself watching the last half hour of The Return of the King.

Why?

Why is it so much more appealing (to me) for a film to show up on broadcast tv than in home video format? Is this some vestige from growing up in a three-channel, pre-home-video era, where the few movies that came on were either from Disney or torn apart by The Ghoul, making a really good movie on tv such a rare treat?

So why would I even remotely consider watching The Bourne Ultimatum, probably with cuts and commercial breaks, rather than Fallen Angels? I wouldn't, and I won't. I'm going to pop in the Wong and enjoy it.

I've just gotta make sure Frodo gets on that boat. And then I'll just check the program guide one more time, to make sure I'm not missing something really special...

Living in the Moment

2009-09-08T13:33:00.000-07:00

People often say that one should "live in the moment," that this is a healthy and appropriate way to approach life. I presume what they mean is that one should neither dwell on the past nor obsess about the future, and to this degree they are correct. But as I find myself living more and more in the present, I'm not sure it's entirely for the best.

I find the future, even the near future, to be confusing and terrifying. I can't see any inviting path from the present to the future, and have no clear idea what my future looks like. That's frightening. As for the past, I've committed so many sins, and had so many sins visited upon me by others, that even a cursory backwards glance fills me with a mixture or regret and rage and leaves me profoundly sad. I'm sure that if I could come to terms with my past, it would help me face my future, and I hope to be able to do that soon. But in the meantime, my pain avoidance technique is to stay firmly fixed on the here and now.

Maybe that explains why I cherish my movie time each evening. Watching a DVD is completely an "in the moment" experience; if the film is any good, I get absorbed in it and consequently forget about my own life for the duration. What is more, getting wrapped up in a good story lets me move freely into the pasts and futures of the characters on the screen, something I can't do for myself. Because the sadness, anxiety, or rage I encounter on these trips belongs to the characters and not to me, I don't internalize them and instead can view them from a detatched, rational perspective. I frequently find myself advising the characters--"can't you see that's not going to work?" "You should do this and stop doing that"--and when I suddenly realize that I'm advising myself as much as them, I immediately shut down that line of thinking and re-focus on the movie.

I'm taking other small steps beyond movie-watching to make my "now" a place of comfort and confidence; my trips to Harbin add to this, I'm trying to get taken on as a volunteer with the local symphony, and will start taking T'ai Chi lessons next week. Even having Reggie T. around makes me feel a little better right now. I figure that if I can make "today" a reliably positive experience, I can work on expanding "today" little by little into yesterday and tomorrow and thus rehabilitate my whole lifeline.

Submitted Without Comment

2009-09-07T11:11:00.001-07:00

...except to point out that all four of the profilees have a partner who provides some measure of financial and emotional support.

Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On (Michael Luo, The New York Times, Sept. 7 2009, page A1)

A Nice Day

2009-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I decided to treat myself to two of my favorite activities (among those I can do alone, at least.)

I got up early and drove to San Francisco, where I spent a good hour browsing the DVD section of Amoeba Music, actually finding some good deals on hard-to-find titles, which I purchased for almost nothing after trading in some dogs I no longer wanted. Although the San Francisco Amoeba pales in comparison to the Hollywood store, it is still a blissful place to while away an hour or more. The fact that it's perched on the edge of Golden Gate Park makes it even nicer. Plus of course the drive through the redwood forest and Coast Ranges is beautiful as well.

Then I headed up to Harbin Hot Springs, which has been mentioned before in this blog, and which I find myself visiting about every two or three weeks, despite it being just under four hours from home. If heaven turns out to be just like Harbin, I will not be disappointed. I spent the rest of the day lounging and unwinding in the hot (115º) and cold (60º) pools, in the sauna and on the sundeck, au naturel, and then retired to my tent by the creek to enjoy the starry night--and one of the movies I bought at Amoeba. It was as close to a perfect day as I am able to get on my solo voyage.

And it was not until the evening that it occurred to me that, in an alternate universe, it was the 25th anniversary of my FedEx hire date, an irony that Keith and Clare (at least) might appreciate. (If the rest of you are wondering how I could recall such a thing, it is because your hire date is relentlessly hammered into your consciousness, along with your employee number--mine was 39620.) I don't know what my day might have been like had I been in Memphis (shudder), but I can say absolutely, positively that it would not have been as idyllic.

Whose Cat is it Anyway?

2009-08-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

Backstory: back on Aug. 7, Reggie the Cat's father paid a visit, claiming him and explaining that his cancer-stricken wife was beside herself with worry over this missing cat who was her sole source of comfort and so on and so forth. Since then, a little urchin from that house (evidently a grandchild) has also come looking for Reggie. I've gotten into the habit of walking Reggie down to his house when I decide he's been up here too long and is probably missed by his "real" family (even though he's here about 80% of the time.) So:

I just got a visit from his mother, the cancer-stricken one, who had just observed me bringing Reggie home again. She drove up here ("I tried to catch you, but I can't run anymore, I can't even get down the driveway") to tell me not to do that anymore. It seems that they have three kittens that Reggie can't stand, and consequently he's something of a terror when he's trapped inside their house. She says she wants him to be happy, and anyway you can't keep a cat where he doesn't want to be (oh, really?) and Reggie's gotta be Reggie and if he's happier here, then that's fine with her. It was all a little confusing, as well as a little pathetic. I told her that I thought Reggie was a great cat and that he certainly loves being here, and her response was essentially "so be it; I have other cats anyway."

And I was actually going to the Humane Society this afternoon to get another cat. Now I'm not sure what to think, especially if Reggie/Trouble has issues getting along with other cats.

There's Good Advice for Me in Here Somewhere

2009-08-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop, by Natalie Angier, New York Times, 8/17/2009, Page D2 of New York ed.

The Times has been reading my diary again:

chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion.

The article reports on new research that indicates that natural stress-fighting techniques can be habit-forming, even when they are no longer needed and actually may inhibit positive outcomes. In other words, chronic stress can become a self-sustaining feedback loop. No duh.

There's hope, though. It seems that rats subjected to Gitmo-like torture regimens that subsequently lost their ability to see any situation as non-stressful and turned into little automatons were able to regain their natural brain function by going on an extended stress-free vacation. That seems like a good prescription (doesn't it?), until you recognize one crucial difference between rats and humans:

In humans, though, the brain can think too much, extracting phantom threats from every staff meeting or high school dance.

I've been able to find small stress-free islands of calm and luxury, but maintaining that state is difficult. It takes a lot of focus to keep the nagging worries at bay, especially when one is engaging in a completely self-indulgent manner (such as soaking in a hot spring, my current favorite stress therapy) that holds no promise of providing a real-world way out of the rat maze.

Still, it is a little comforting to know that, when I feel better during and immediately after another 24 hours at my spa, it may be because I am better; a little bit of brain healing may have taken place.

More Blathering About the Cat

2009-08-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you're all good and tired of the Reggie/Trouble saga, but I just have to post this.

As expected, he keeps coming around. I'm not sure how well-treated and/or well-loved he is at home, but he clearly expects me to feed and love him. I'm determined to not do the former and limit the latter as much as I can.

So tonight, as I've been going in and out watering the roses, he has slipped in here twice, both times going straight for the area where I used to feed him, only to be disappointed. I let him see the lack of food, and pick him up and take him back outside, closing the door in his pathetic little face.

Now he's back for a third try, this time with a fresh kill for me, clearly intended as a quid pro quo.

Must ... not ... break ... resolve...

UPDATE:
Ick. It was not a quid pro quo after all, it was a substitute dinner. And given the speed in which a whole rodent turned into a couple of entrails on my doormat, he really is a hungry kitty. Poor Reggie.

Somebody has offered Lori Drew a job

2009-08-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

Lori Drew Requests Internet Access (by Robert Patrick, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 6, 2009)
"Attorney H. Dean Steward wrote that Drew got a recent offer of a job that would require her to use the Internet."

I think I'm going about this job search all wrong.

No More Troubles

2009-08-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Trouble, aka Reggie, has been found by his rightful owner. He belongs to one of the nearest neighbors, who thought he had been consumed by a mountain lion while they were on vacation. Although I expect him to continue showing up around here, I'm not going to let him in the house or feed him anymore. *sigh*

I only wish they'd have shown up before I dropped $100 on the vet for his (unnecessary) shots.

"It’s a whole package of awful events.”

2009-08-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Divorce, It Seems, Can Make You Ill (by Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times, Aug. 3, 2009, page D5 of the New York edition)

Punch line: “With a divorce you’re disrupting your life, but a long-term acrimonious marriage also is very bad.”

An Aptly Named Cat

2009-07-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Trouble and I are just back from the vet, where the heretofore bundle of love seen at left morphed into a tiny ball of holy hell. He turns out to be a very healthy, nearly 11 pound, 3-ish year old neutered male, one who has definite ideas about what should and should not be done with needles and thermometers. After the vet took him to the "treatment area" ("to spare your arms," she said) to de-worm him and give him his shots , the offscreen ruckus was almost comical. I was genuinely surprised when the vet returned unbloodied. And yet, not five minutes after we get home, this is his demeanor.

So he is someone's pet, or at least ex-pet. I wouldn't expect the farmers here to neuter a barn cat, and he's in terrific condition with no fleas or scars or any of the other calling-cards of a stray. He could be a dumped cat, like Pippi was, but I don't know why anyone (other than a vet tech) would want to rid themselves of such a loving, mild-mannered, healthy cat. He could be a runaway, but he's been here more or less consistently for at least six weeks, and nobody has come looking for him. I'll get my landlord, who knows everyone in the valley, to ask around, but there's really not many houses in runaway-cat range, so I doubt that will turn up anything. Plus, nobody at the vet's office recognized him--and believe me, they would have, given his performance this morning--and they are the only vet in town. So it looks like he's my little bundle of joy mixed with a dash of terror.

Here Comes Trouble!

2009-07-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

It's looking more and more likely that this is my new cat. He (or she) is the neighborhood cat, a very loving but feisty and very small cop cat (i.e., black-and-white). I started calling her (or him) "Trouble" because, invariably, that is what would ensue when he (or she) came into contact with my landlady's nearly identical cop cat ("Boots"). When Boots came into my yard, he was always looking for Trouble; hence the name. I quickly made friends with this love-starved animal, but I was unsure if she (or he) was a stray or just a wayward neighbor.

Trouble insists on this profile shot, claiming it makes him (or her) look more dignified. Anything you say, little Trouble.

My friends L&D were considering giving me one of their cats, so I bought all of the necessities so as to be prepared when they came to dinner last weekend. Prior to that, however, and after an absence of about a week, Trouble suddenly appeared in my backyard, and when I asked her (or him) in, she (or he) quickly accepted, and we began a settling-in process. This week, I took an overnight trip down to the Bay Area, and the minute I stepped out of the car upon my return, there was Trouble, asking to be let in. We've been more or less inseparable since (although he or she is outside now.)

It's still an open question whether the other cat ("Deuce") will be joining the family, but it seems unlikely.

Trouble is a lap cat that gets overstimulated easily, resulting in love bites that can be fairly deep. As we haven't been to the V-E-T yet, I'm hoping that she or he will not break the skin until we can have some tests done and shots administered. And maybe then we can clear up the mystery of whether Trouble is a he or a she, before rendering that distinction an historical curiosity.

Stupid Sports Clichés, Vol. 63,904

2009-07-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

Because the Met Opera Radio is playing Hansel und Gretel (ugh), I've switched on the radio coverage of the British Open, where 59-year-old Tom Watson is still in contention late in the final round. Watson had just done something good when the BBC broadcaster, in his best Olivier voice, intoned "is history beckoning for Tom Watson?" There was a slight pause, followed by at least three other members of the announcing team, all sounding a bit startled, mumbling variations on "well, yes, it's beckoning, all right. It's certainly beckoning."

Aside: in case you think golf on the radio is about as dull as dull gets, I'll point out that you can also find NASCAR on the radio.

"He keeps birds. Dirty, disgusting, filthy, lice-ridden birds."

2009-07-17T15:36:00.000-07:00

It is suddenly nesting season here on the north coast. I'm no birder, so I can't identify the species, but I have a nesting pair who are insistent on building their nest right outside my front door. This is something I just can't allow, and I feel guilty about it. They started to build their nest around a nail in my porch overhang. I knocked down what they'd begun and removed the nail, hoping they'd try somewhere else, but they just keep coming back. They haven't started any new construction, and seem rather frustrated that their nascent home is gone without a trace. It makes me sad to watch, but I can't have protective birds attacking my head every time I pass through the door. I'd be willing to settle for using the back door, but I've already permitted a nest to be built near there, and the inhabitants routinely buzz me whenever I go near it.

The birds know I'm talking about them; they're back kicking up a ruckus right outside my door even as I type this.

There are other birds here whose presence I warmly welcome. There is a large floral hedge that separates my yard from a sheep pasture; like the birds, I can't identify it, but maybe you can from the photo at left. The hedge itself is perhaps ten feet tall and runs for about 30 yards, and is positively lousy with hummingbirds. I wish I could provide a picture, but they won't come near when I'm outside, and my camera's zoom lens isn't strong enough to catch such a small thing from inside my house. It's not uncommon for me to look out at the hedge and see as many as five of them buzzing around. Even though the novelty of seeing them has worn off, it's still a thrill to have them around. They compete with honeybees, bumblebees, and butterflies for the available nectar, making this already-beautiful hedge alive with winged grace. And so far none of them has attacked me for coming too close to their homestead.

If anyone can identify either the bird or the bush, or even if you can't, please leave a comment.

A Prayer

2009-07-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today I was out taking an unexpected hike through the forest (more on this another day), and got to thinking about trees. I was on a steeply descending stretch of trail, and mid-slope I encountered the large, knobby roots of a very large tree--probably a Sitka spruce--spread across the path. This was a welcome site, as it allowed me footholds to slow my momentum and recalibrate my pace. It occurred to me that Richard Nelson, certainly the best writer and probably the wisest person I've ever known, would stop to thank the tree for uncomplainingly providing this service. While I was lost in this, another of my increasingly frequent WWND (What Would Nels Do?) moments, these thoughts came to me.

Thank you, tree, for supporting my clumsy steps; and for supporting this trail, and the hillside which makes this trail possible. Thank you for providing shade, making it possible to enjoy your home on this hot day. Thank you for providing the air that I breathe, and for cleansing the water that I drink. Thank you for providing habitat for the birds whose song I am enjoying, and for the ferns that make this such a beautiful path. Thank you for sacrificing yourself so that I can have shelter and heat in the winter. Thank you for making our world a continual source of wonder and beauty. May we continue to learn ways to live together, respecting each other's needs and contributions to our shared habitat.

Final Score: Bat 1, Fiddlesticks 0

2009-06-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not really sure, but I think he came back last night. I dunno--either it was a very big moth or a very small bat. He circled the ceiling four or five times, then vanished and did not return. I was not really in the mood to deal with a bat attack, as I was already being attacked by something I ate earlier in the day, so I was glad when he went away. Still, I've decided to cede the territory to the flying rat--I've moved out of that bedroom, which can be sealed off at night. Now he can haunt the ceiling to his black heart's content; I don't think there's any way he can get into the main part of the house when the back bedroom door is shut.

This actually solves a number of problems, while creating only a few new ones, as far as I can tell. The floor in that back bedroom is not level, and thus neither was the bed, which made sleeping difficult. I believe I've mentioned that the big window never really closes, making the room fairly breezy and cool. Plus it gets very light very early, and also is in the line of fire of the nighttime airport beacon, and I won't miss either form of light pollution very much. Maybe I'll convert the back room into a dining area, so I can enjoy the morning light and views that way. Hmmm.

My new bedroom, upper left, is in the front of the cottage (southwest corner), has level floors and tight windows. It's near the stove, so it will be warm in winter--I only hope it's not too warm. The bathroom is off this room, which might cause a problem if I ever have a non-amorous overnight guest, but is a godsend when my stomach behaves like it did last night. The move allowed me to put some of the borrowed furniture to better use than I was giving it, and it permits me to have a furnished front room, right and below left, rather than a largely empty space. One newly-created problem is that the bedroom has a beautiful red and blue Persian rug, and even my color-deficient eyes tell me that my brown bedding scheme clashes with it. Click the picture to enlarge it, and you'll see what I mean.

So far, however, I like it. I hope the bat does too.

Oh, My Aching Back

2009-06-26T08:57:00.000-07:00

Over the past three days, I have unloaded and stacked two cords of firewood (see left--there's more than what's shown), installed and set up my landlord's new 47" HDTV (in an upstairs location), and loaded, transported, and unloaded a new refrigerator, which necessitated removing the doors, which further led to an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the doors.

I am officially tired. But I'm glad to have the wood, and very glad to have the fridge. Today comes the real heavy lifting--I'm going to Costco to stock the refrigerator.

Die Fledermaus, encore

2009-06-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

Guess who came to pay me a visit last night?

A little after two a.m. I was awakened from a restless sleep into an even more restless hell. It seems the Rohnerville Aiport, situated atop the bluffs just across the Eel from stately Fiddlesticks Manor, added the Bat Signal to their all-night-every-night rotating beacon, and out came my housemate from his hiding place in the attic. As I lay terrified and cursing beneath my comforter, to which I ascribe life-saving powers, the bat (perhaps equally terrified) circled the bedroom looking for a way out.

This being the second-shortest night of the year, I briefly considered remaining huddled under the comforter until daybreak, which I figured was only a few hours away. I wasn't going to get any more sleep anyway. But then I realized that this was not a solution, as the Capeless Crusader would just give up and return to the attic, set to haunt me another night. (Alternatively, he might chew through the comforter, get into my hair, and bite me, causing me to die a slow and agonizing death from rabies, as all bat-bite victims do. I still remember a news story from my childhood, in which the victim somehow, miraculously, survived a bite from one of these huge bugs, the first time in the annals of history that anyone had not succumbed to this most horrible of fates. At least, that's how I remember it. It is possible that I'm conflating this story with "Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot," however.)

I knew I had to engineer a way for Batman to get to the Batmobile and get the hell out of my bedroom. Fortunately, I had the tools at hand. At the head of the bed, shown left, is a large window through which I can look out over the Eel and enjoy the morning light. (And through which my companion can see the Rohnerville Bat Signal.) This window has no screen and opens by releasing a single catch. Indeed, it never really closes, staying open just enough to let the night breeze in and keep the bedroom feeling like it's partly a campsite.

With visions of The Big Chill in mind (in that film, a skylight is opened to let the bat escape, only to have more bats fly in and join the attack), I bravely reached an arm up out of the mountain of bedding and flipped the latch to open the window, then retreated under the comforter, exposing my vulnerable, quivering self just enough to see the top of the window so I could monitor the bat activity. Shortly thereafter I saw a bat seemingly pass through the window; in which direction I could only guess. (Bats fly so erratically that it's tough to trace their paths, especially with one eye peeping out from beneath a comforter.) I guessed/prayed that he'd gone out to fight crime, and quickly pulled the window shut. Perhaps a minute later, the bat, or one of his relatives, fluttered back over my bed. I've no idea whether he'd failed to leave, or whether I had let an incremental bat in, or whether I had been a multi-bat household all along, but seeing that I was out of ideas (and that I had to go to the toilet really badly), I reached out and re-opened the window.

Once again a bat seemed to fly through the opening, but this time I left the window open, figuring that no bat in his right senses would fly in, and if one did, I'd need the window open anyway. (It's important to learn to think like a bat.) I left it open for what seemed like an hour but was probably better measured in seconds, and when I was satisfied as to the lack of bat-activity, pulled the window closed again. Using the light from my bedside radio, I monitored the situation on the ceiling for, oh, 30 minutes, then crept out of bed to the bathroom, doubled over and cursing my height the whole way. Once safely back in bed, I lay beneath my protective covering of cotton and alternative down and stayed on alert until about 4 a.m., but no bats returned to disturb me any further.

I still can only guess where the bats come from and whether they are back there right now. Just about the only similarity my cottage has with Bruce Wayne's stately Wayne Manor is that the bat ingress/egress is a closely guarded secret. I assume that they live in the attic, which is supposed to be separated from the house by the ingenious application of a piece of plywood, but even with the help of Braulio the farmhand I could not get this awkward, heavy board to fit flush over the opening (see left.) I presume that the bats laugh at my feeble hope that they will not bother to fly through the 4" opening left by the misapplication of the plywood. What I don't know is if they can get into and out of the attic from the outside (they could have come in through any number of open windows while the place was unoccupied, during which period the attic "door" was on the bedroom floor). They're probably up there right now, snickering at how easy it is to terrify me. Maybe I need to get some really powerful bug spray.

Is This Thing On?

2009-06-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

"By the way, I don't have your cell number. Can you give it to me?"

This inocuous statement was in an email from my landlord, received yesterday. I gave it to her in a reply email.

That makes four times in the past month or so that I've given her my cell number.

There are several ways one could react to such a question, and perhaps it gives a little insight into my psyche to discuss what mine was.

One could, of course, have no reaction at all, and just provide the number. In fact, one could even be unaware that this is a repeated request. I strive to reach this level of Nirvana.

Some people might chuckle at the questioner's evident disorganization, while others might become annoyed and fire back a response along the lines of "write this down and quit bothering me!" But I am neither of these people.

I take this and similar questions as further proof of my insignificance. She knows she needs my number, as I am her tenant and she might need to get hold of me. But I'm so inconsequential that as soon as the question is asked, interest in the answer drifts away like a puff of smoke. Then when it occurs to her that she hasn't got my number, the reaction is not "oh I forgot to write that down" or "where did I put his number?," but rather that the subject has not even come up.

Amateur psychoanalysts can probably read even more into the fact that this resonates with me strongly enough that I feel I must discuss it with someone, and furthermore that the "someone" turns out to be a blog post. I'd rather not hear their conclusions, should they reach any before losing interest.

In the meantime, I'll patiently wait for request #5.

Life on the Farm

2009-06-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I just paid a brief nocturnal visit to my cottage (I'm housesitting tonight) and was greeted by a

>>> bat. <<<

It was fluttering around the ceiling of the room I have designated to be my home theatre. I spent the better part of the afternoon hooking up components and balancing speakers and so forth, and I guess the bat was anxious for the premier.

I expect a certain amount of wildlife, even rodents, as there are some places where the interior of the cottage and the exterior of the Lost Coast are not strangers, but I wasn't expecting to find them on the ceiling. The anti-rodent expert (or experts) I soon expect to hire away from the local animal shelter should take care of the four-footed variety but may not have the ground-to-air weaponry for this new threat.

I suppose the bat came from the attic, which has been standing open for a couple of weeks; the large piece of plywood that is intended to separate homey cottage from creepy attic has been standing on end in the back bedroom awaiting, well, I'm not sure what. Tomorrow, when I hope my mosquito-eating companion is back up there and asleep, I may see about replacing it. I hadn't tried before now as I figure it's beyond my spatial abilities, but now I have a new and urgent motivation as I am supposed to sleep in the cottage tomorrow night.

Movin' on Up

2009-06-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

I now have a firm-ish move-in date. After house- and pet-sitting for my landlord next weekend, I'll move 50 yards up the road to my cottage on Monday week (6/15). It's been cleaned (the last tenant kept turkeys in the pantry~~), and we've decided against painting the interior (because I don't care in the least about such matters), so all that remains is that a missing window get replaced and a new (used) refrigerator get acquired, delivered, and installed. Here's some quick photos taken this afternoon, which was just another day in paradise:
The exterior is going to be repainted one fine day.

Here is the view out the north-facing window, which is more or less in the kitchen/dining area:

The back yard has some garden plots, a fence line of wild berries, then descends down a bluff to the Eel River.

Here's the source of heat, of which I hope to need little: The table and chairs stay, alongside numerous other pieces of furniture.

There's two bedrooms, and someday soon two beds. Plan a visit.

Nobody ever said...

2009-06-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

...that growing up would be easy. *sigh*

He Rocks in the Treetops All Night Long

2009-05-28T09:11:00.001-07:00

I now "tweet." http://twitter.com/_fiddlesticks_

Looking Up

2009-05-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've been on the Redwood Coast for a bit less than a month now, and I continue to be bowled over by how beautiful it is here. There's truly a bit of everything within just a few miles. Mountains, rivers, and forests (and such forests!) Cities (well, large towns, anyway), small towns, and farms. Sandy beaches, rocky beaches, and seaside cliffs. There's at least a little sun and a little fog nearly every day.

The city (Eureka) feels less like a seaport than any seaport I've seen. There's no seagulls, no salt spray in the air, and rather than nautical-themed houses there's Victorian gingerbread everywhere. It's compact enough that you can walk anywhere, and almost every walk is lovely.

The other day I needed to buy a couple of bolts, and that's when I discovered that I had to buy them at (gasp!) a hardware store. There's no Home Depot, no Lowe's, no OSH anywhere in town. If there's a Wal-Mart, I don't know where it is. In fact, I think you can count the "big box" stores on one hand. (Fortunately, there is a Costco!)

Maybe it's the change of scenery, or just getting up and out of the basement, but it occurred to me last night that, since I've been here, I haven't had an episode of grinding, despairing depression, the sort of day where you just can't pull yourself together. I'm accustomed to those days, and while three weeks is not a long time, it's a positive sign.

In the meantime, things are slowly beginning to happen. More on this later in the week.

Special Weather Warning!

2009-05-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

This morning I log on to find that there is an active "Special Weather Statement" from the National Weather Service for "Redwood Coast, California":

Statement as of 5:33 AM PDT on May 12, 2009

... Hot daytime temperatures expected over the weekend...

A strong ridge of high pressure will build over the West Coast on Friday prompting daytime temperatures to climb well above normal over the weekend. Although uncertainty remains as to how hot it will get...coastal locations could see highs in the mid 60s ...with temperatures soaring into the mid and upper 90s across interior valleys.

These conditions may pose heat-related risks to individuals who will be outdoors for extended periods of time. If you plan to be outside... wear a hat and loose-fitting clothing... and be sure to drink plenty of water. More detailed information is available from the National Weather Service at weather.Gov/Eureka.

(emphasis added)

Ohmygawd...temps in the mid-60s? Whatever shall we do?!?

As my friend David likes to say, "just another day in Paradise."

This Summer I Hear the Drumming

2009-05-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

Four Dead in Ohio.
Photo: John Filo (c) 1970 Valley News-Dispatch
Song Lyrics: Neil Young (c) 1970 Cotillion/Broken Arrow

Other people remember where they were when JFK was shot, or when the astronauts landed on the moon, or other events. This is the one I will always remember. At least Gov. James A. Rhodes, the man who compared the students protesting the April 30 expansion of American combat troops into Cambodia to brown shirts and night riders who were "the worst type of people that we harbor in America," and sent the National Guard in with loaded weapons, was subsequently thrown out of office and publicly vilified...

As if.

In reality, he was re-elected two more times, and this statue was erected in front of the state office building--the city's tallest building-- named for him in Columbus.

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground? How can you run when you know?

(c) Dania Hurley; obtained from Flickr

Houston, Tranquility Base

2009-05-02T20:12:00.001-07:00

The Eagle has landed.

(Not my photo.)

Wildrose Charcoal Kilns

2009-04-30T22:15:00.004-07:00

I haven't switched political parties, driven into a crowd assembled to see the Queen, declared bankruptcy, or caught the swine flu (although I have had some iffy days health-wise lately), which may explain why you haven't heard much of my doings lately. I'm just not newsworthy. Of course, I've spent the last few days holed up at Death Valley National Park, where there is no limelight--although the starlight is more than abundant. Even though it is still April (barely), it's already too hot for me to do much more than cross the valley floor; consequently I spent most of my time in the upper elevations, as well as doing what most overnight tourists in DVNP spend hours each day doing--driving to Nevada for gas. Now I'm safely back in California, and tomorrow I set my sights on Eureka, expecting to drive through rain all day and arrive in the late afternoon.

Bill Ferny

2009-04-19T14:18:00.003-07:00

Where you have fog and mist and tall trees with a solid canopy, you're going to have ferns. And in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, there's a riot of ferns.

Final preparations for Wednesday's liftoff are well underway. The launch vehicle has been fueled and tested. The payload is being assembled for loading, which is expected to take place over the next 48 hours. Final flight plans have been filed and confirmed, and the recovery crews are waiting at the splashdown area, where a special reception will be held on May 3 to celebrate what one hopes will be a successful journey. The major cable networks are not expected to cover Wednesday's launch, however, since there's too many kooky Texas politicians and moronic "tax protests" and White House puppies for any real news to slip through.

High Country

2009-04-09T07:56:00.002-07:00

It's stretching things a bit to call this a Eureka-area photo. It's a view from Page Mountain in the Siskiyous, looking north into Oregon. It'd take me a couple of hours or more to get there from Eureka.

Still it's a good representation of my current stress level. If I make it to the 22nd without having a stroke, I'll be fortunate.

Cool water

2009-04-05T16:08:00.003-07:00

As the day draws nearer, I get a little more nervous. It's not in my character to take blind leaps like this; throughout my life, I've consistently taken the safe choice. I have to keep reminding myself, however, that there is no safe choice available to me anymore. Even if everything goes as wrong as possible out west, I'm not exactly sure what the outcome will be, but I am sure that it won't be materially different from the outcome I'd get by not taking this risk. And by taking the leap, I'm creating the possibility that something may go right, a possibility that doesn't exist in this basement (or, at least, in my basement frame of mind.) It scares me that I've made this decision at exactly the worst moment in my lifetime, and I'm very worried about finding a job once I get out there. But it doesn't scare me so much that I'm having any second thoughts. What I'm doing may or may not be the best choice for me, but I know that it's a better choice than doing nothing.

Pictured: the stream that wends through Fern Canyon.

Three Weeks Left

2009-04-01T14:20:00.004-07:00

I leave for my new life three weeks from today. The other night, I watched 'Ornamental Hairpin,' a magnificent film made by Shimizu Hiroshi in 1941. In it, Miss Emi, a Tokyo 'kept woman' played by the incomparable Tanaka Kinuyo, has taken refuge in a mountain spa. When confronted by a figure from (what she now considers to be) her past, she explains:
I don't want to go back to that gloomy life. That's no way to live. I didn't want for money. I could sleep when I wanted, get up when I wanted, wear what I wanted, eat what I wanted, see what I wanted--but that's all. I want more meaning in my life.

[spoiler] She doesn't go back. And neither will I.

Three weeks.

Today's photo is of Hidden Beach, mentioned in last Saturday's post.

Very, Very Tall Trees

2009-03-30T14:21:00.003-07:00

Phil Connors predicted warm weather, gang wars, and some very overpriced real estate for California, and very, very tall trees for the Pacific Northwest. Being from Punxatawney he, like most Easterners, failed to realize that the "pacific northwest" extends as far south as northern California. This very tall tree stands alongside the Miner's Ridge Trail in Prairie Creek Redwoods State (and National) Park.

Southern Del Norte County

2009-03-28T12:20:00.006-07:00

I can't decide if the ruggedness of the North Coast is what makes it so beautiful, or just what keeps it so beautiful. While I'd love to have a condo with this view, I love even more that it's not possible. About the only "improvement" this terrain will allow is the California Coastal Trail, and it is from this trail (somewhere between Requa, at the mouth of the Klamath River, and Hidden Beach, near False Klamath Rock) that this picture was snapped. This was a tough day of hiking (for me), a spur-of-the-moment decision that brought a lot of climbing and scrambling over perhaps 8 miles with it, but it was one of the most rewarding walks I've ever taken. I look forward to revisiting this trail soon.

Goin' to the Sun

2009-03-26T15:47:00.003-07:00

This photo was taken at sunset on the Summer Solstice at Gold Bluffs Beach. Gold Bluffs Beach is such a beautiful place. There's a non-descript campground there (which seemed to be hosting some kind of hippie event when I was there), and it's two or three forested miles from the highway, so it's as peaceful as the campers will allow it to be. The beach is very, very wide, and a very relaxing if somewhat chilly place to spend the Solstice. Plus it's a short walk to two trailheads that lead back through the forest, one beginning at Fern Canyon, which I will feature later if I can find a good photo.

Eureka!

2009-03-24T14:25:00.005-07:00

There's a lot more Eurekas than I'd have ever guessed. In the US alone, towns or townships in 17 states, plus Eureka Springs, AR. Eureka, IL, is the site of Eureka College, Ronald Reagan's alma mater. Eureka, MO, is home to a Six Flags Theme Park and is next to the now-forgotten Times Beach Superfund site. Eureka, MT, formerly a stop on the Burlington's Empire Builder, until the Flathead Tunnel cut it off. Eureka, NV, "the friendliest town on the loneliest road in America," and (according to Wikipedia), with a population of 650, "by far the larger of the 2 towns in Eureka County."

I should try to design a route from here to Eureka (CA) that connects all of the Eurekas between here and there. I could go just about due west through Eurekas in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, and Nevada, or take a more northerly route through Eureka Twp. Michigan, Eureka Wisconsin, Eureka Twp. Iowa, and Eurekas in South Dakota and Montana.

I could even visit Eureka, Nunavut, the "second-northernmost permanent research community in the world" (Wikipedia) where the highest temperature ever recorded was 68°F, en route to Eureka, California (where the highest temperature ever recorded was 87°F).

All of that is merely to announce that I'm going to post some of the pictures I took on a recent trip to the Redwood Empire. These were taken at a variety of places between Eureka and Crescent City. Today's photo is of a grazing elk in the tidal marshes near Gold Bluffs Beach and Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State and National Park, about 50 miles north of Eureka. (By the way, did you know that you can click on any photo to see a greatly enlarged version?)

Published! (Twice!)

2009-03-12T09:07:00.004-07:00

Okay, so it's not the Great American Novel, or even a poem in an anthology; it's a small piece of sportswriting. But it's professionally published ("professional" assumes I will be paid for these one day), and it was fun to do. So here it is: enjoy!

Playing Like Seniors

And here's a second one, from the following week: New Year, New Results (Note: I don't contribute the headlines.)

It's Cliche Week Here at T&O!

2009-03-10T13:28:00.002-07:00

When you invest all of your remaining time, money, and energy in growing lemons, derailing your life in the process, you might as well try to make some lemonade. And be thankful that you've at least got some lemons to make it with, which is more than many people have these days. Using your lemons, and perhaps some leftover stewed prunes you canned years ago, to try to make fish tacos is just plain stupid and will get you nowhere.

Actually, it's a futon

2009-03-04T10:24:00.002-08:00

I've made my bed. I started making it back in 1999, and it was ready to be slept in by 2004 or 05 or so. Since then, I've slept in it every night, and made it up every morning, usually while I'm still in it. It's gotten less and less comfortable over the years, but I knew it would when I decided to buy it. These days, the mattress is getting lumpy, the sheets are a little threadbare, and it's getting harder and harder to get a good night's sleep. I'd like to get a new one, but it not as easy as I thought it would be. In the meantime, I'll continue to sleep in my old bed, the one I've made for myself every day for more than five years.

Hey! Who Turned Out the Lights?

2009-02-27T12:48:00.002-08:00

It seems I've been idle so long that I'm now just an archive. Now that I've typed that, I see how apt it is. Nevertheless, nature abhors a vacuum, so here's a new post just to buy myself another week. And since you've wasted your visit, here's a picture.

Celebrate Title IX!

2009-02-04T19:27:00.001-08:00

Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day!

An Ugly Story

2009-02-02T16:58:00.003-08:00

This afternoon I was tuned into NPR's All Things Considered, a program I listen to perhaps once a month. Today they featured a story about a burgeoning sexual abuse scandal in New York's Hasidic community. The presenter, with a suitably grave voice, told us of a little boy who was violated in a mikvah, and a second boy abused by a rabbi at his Talmudical school. It was an horrific story, filled with the sorts of denials and cover-ups that we all got used to when this was happening in the Roman Catholic church. It is good that we still have members of the media who are willing to dig in and unearth these sorts of stories; brought into the bright light of scrutiny, perhaps healing can begin.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

I don't mean to trivialize the very real suffering of these little boys and their altar boy predecessors, or ignore the heinous crimes committed in the name of God by their abusers, but...isn't what makes this a national news story the simple fact of the victim's gender?

More than one in six American women have been the victims of attempted or completed rape. Of those, one in five were assaulted before they reached the age of twelve. That's roughly four percent of the female population of the US, something like six million girls. For every two dozen women you know, the odds are that four of them have been the victims of violent sexual assault, and for one of them it happened in her pre-teen years.

How many little girls have to be raped before it becomes a national scandal worthy of attention of All Things Considered?

Up on Big Mesa

2009-02-01T22:10:00.002-08:00

Up on Big Mesa, you can see for miles and miles in all directions. You can see beautiful things, like cliffs blazing red in the evening sun. Ephemeral things, like the breeze stirring up a dust devil. Improbable things, like the great, delicate sandstone arches. Things that are too wonderful and too fragile to last. Like your love.

Up on Big Mesa, as the sunset fails, you can see the taillights of the cars headed north on 191. They are already miles away, and getting farther away every second. They are hastening to another place, vanishing into a dark emptiness. Like your love.

Up on Big Mesa, the nighttime skies are ablaze from horizon to horizon with starlight. The beautiful light comes from an incomprehensible distance, from stars that emitted it in the distant past. Some of the brilliance comes from stars that don't even exist anymore. Like your love.

Up on Big Mesa, things exist on a vast scale. The horizons are distant, the heavens are boundless, and no matter how loud you cry out, nobody will hear you. Up on Big Mesa, you are alone, insignificant, and unnecessary. Like my heart.

Procrastination Pro

2009-01-28T10:10:00.003-08:00

My capacity for doing nothing seems boundless. I really should be working on a job application (a constant condition dating back several years now), but I can't seem to get started on that. I dislike drawing attention to myself, except in the most abstract ways--such as an anonoymous blog--and I have no gift at all for self-promotion. My general opinion of myself is that anyone who would consider either hiring or dating me is so lacking in judgment as to be unworthy of my company. (Insert Groucho Marx joke here.) I really do believe, in the abstract, that I'd be a wonderful candidate for this particular job, but I can't convince myself that I can convince anyone else of that fact.

I also need to write my supposed-to-be-daily blog post ("need to" in the sense of self-discipline), and I actually have a topic in mind, but when I think of starting that, I feel that it is self-indulgent and that I really should be working on that letter instead.

So I do neither, and instead play solitaire and watch an old Lubitsch movie. And write this.

A Run Runs Through It

2009-01-26T12:20:00.002-08:00

My county is a well-watered one, with ample precipitation, many springs, and a network of streams in all directions. Our local economy is largely based on the rich farmland and beautiful forests, and for these we can thank our abundant runs, rills, and rivers--or at least we could, if anyone knew their names.

And those names are so lyrical, full of simpler days and a history forgotten. Sharp Run. Black Creek. Honey Run. What happened to give Military Run its name? Were Hardy and Doughty creeks named for settlers or for their personalities? Few people remember the names themselves, if they ever knew them, much less the stories behind the names. If schoolchildren were to be made aware of the names of the streams, it just might spark their interest in learning about the history of the land they call home. They might learn that pioneer families like the Shrimplin brothers (of Shrimplin Creek) peacefully coexisted for a time with the Lenape under the famous Chief Killbuck (of Killbuck Creek) and realize that tolerance has deep roots in our community.

I've also long felt that teaching the local population the names of their watercourses would be a good first step towards taking a protective sense of ownership in the watershed. Having a name humanizes something, and you feel more responsible for its well-being. The only difference between a pet goose and a Christmas goose is that the entree was never called "Samantha" by anyone at the table. Similarly, I believe that folks who might casually toss a bottle of antifreeze or a broken toilet into "the creek" might think twice before despoiling the fresh waters of Salt Creek. If they know that this stream is Sand Run, and that one is Upper Sand Run, it might dawn on them that all of the waters of the county are interrelated, and what happens in one rivulet also affects the waters downstream, as well as the people who live nearby.

Our streams tend to be slow runners with broad floodplains, which helps account for the very productive bottomland farming in the area. Bottomland farmers, although they benefit from floods past, tend to find floods present and future a bit of a nuisance. This has led to a recent spate of streak dredging, with the spoil used to build up the banks into mini-levees. Although local flooding will surely be reduced by this method (with the unintended consequence of impoverishing the farmland), this dredging will mean that the river can carry more water at a faster pace, with potentially catastrophic results downstream. After all, the streams need and use their floodplains, and the demand for them is not lessened when the supply is reduced. Folks around here tend to be very companionable, and generally will not knowlingly foist their problems onto their unsuspecting neighbors. They simply don't understand enough about river systems to know that that's what they're doing. Maybe if they knew the names of the streams, they'd connect them, like names on a family tree, and would begin to understand.

A good first step would be to place a sign everywhere a road crosses a named creek. Hardly a novel concept, but one that has been ignored for all but the Killbuck Creek, the county's main river. It might cost a few thousand dollars, which is a large request in times of economic strife. Maybe I can get it added to the current stimulus bill?

Going South

2009-01-23T09:39:00.004-08:00

When the cat peed on his lap, it was like a slap to the face. He suddenly realized where he was, and why. He looked down and petted his terrified cat and quietly began to cry again.

Less than 24 hours earlier, he was a happy man, or at least a contented one. At that time he was relaxing on the City of New Orleans, heading home to see his wife for the first time in a month. The train was behind schedule, as usual, which meant he wouldn't be home until well after midnight. Knowing he'd have to be back on this train heading south on Sunday morning, every minute was precious to him. As the train crept through southern Mississippi, he planned his Saturday. He'd sleep late, then have his coffee by the backyard pond he'd dug before leaving for law school. He'd play with the cats awhile, and maybe take a walk in Overton Park. But above all, he'd get reacquainted with his wife. He'd remind himself of how her glasses tilted ever so slightly to one side, of the way she still drawled her 'A's while trying to hide her Alabama accent, even of the way her breath tasted in the morning. (It's odd, the things you find endearing after eleven years of marriage, he thought.) They'd go out to dinner at Automatic Slim's, their favorite restaurant. He even imagined that he might be able to talk her into some sort of sexual activity. It may be a short weekend, but it would be a lovely one.

He was half right, although it would become the longest short weekend of his life. It started when he came out of the train station and got into the idling car. He had hoped she'd be glad to see him, but instead she was angry about having to come downtown at 2:30 am to pick him up, as if it had been his fault that the train was late. In fact, she hadn't even bothered to dress beyond putting a coat over her nightgown, and wasn't even wearing her glasses. Well, that's why she didn't come in to meet the train, he thought. Then in the morning, when his offer to cook her breakfast was gruffly refused, he chalked it up to the lack of sleep. He decided to try to lighten the mood.

"Geez, anybody'd think you didn't love me," he said. It was something he'd said a thousand times before; she was not one to say "I love you," so this was his way of getting her to admit it.

"I wouldn't have married you if I didn't love you," was the reply he heard. She also had said this a thousand times before, only this morning that's not what she had said. What she actually had said was this: "I don't." Then she had begun to cry.

"What's the matter? Why are you crying?" he said, before it hit him. He looked at her blankly.

"I said I don't love you. I want a divorce."

Most of the rest of the day was lost in the fog that took over his brain, until the cat brought him back into the daylight world. He was being driven back to New Orleans, and she was doing the driving. She had refused to let him stay in the house and, lacking any other way for him to get back home ("back home," he now realized, was a phrase that meant exactly the opposite from the day before), they'd decided that she'd drive him there. Besides his weekend luggage, the only thing he'd taken with him was his cat, Charlie, a cat who had been with him since he was single, and who had (wisely, it now seemed) never warmed up to his wife. Her opinion of Charlie was not improved when his incontinence required her to pull over so her soon-to-be ex-husband could change his pants.

Back on the road, he switched on the car radio and tuned in the Alabama/Auburn football game. The silence was too painful; he needed a distraction. He could have tuned into the Michigan/Ohio St. game, since Michigan was his team, but her team was 'Bama and he knew she'd want to listen to the game. That's the kind of guy he was: understanding to a fault. Or maybe he was just accustomed to avoiding trouble. Maybe all those years of being understanding in order to avoid confrontation is what had led to that morning's denouement. Maybe...no. Stop. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Let's just get this day over first.

He made a couple of inocuous observations about the football game, both of which went unanswered, so he stopped. He noticed that again she wasn't wearing her glasses. "Did you get contacts?" he asked, mildly surprised that she'd never told him that was her plan. "Laser," came the terse reply. He suddenly realized that this had been in the works for quite some time. How long, he wondered?

When they arrived in New Orleans, he had to give her driving directions to his apartment. She didn't know the way. How long? Was this why she had been so enthusiastic about his idea to go to law school? At Thanksgiving dinner, nearly a year ago now, she had told everyone how proud she was of what he was doing, giving up a six-figure income to study law to help the indigent. He had been deeply moved by this surprising display, but now he thought it might have been a sham designed to ensure that he stick out the long tough one-L year. Maybe she didn't love him even then. Maybe she'd never really loved him, like he'd been saying in half-jest for a decade.

When they arrived at his Uptown flat, he asked if she'd like to come in and watch the second half before starting the five-hour return trip. He didn't really mean it; it's just the kind of thing he'd say without thinking. She just looked at him with a look of disbelief, with a little pity mixed in, and pulled away from the curb. Carrying the still-shaking Charlie, he went into his one bedroom patio apartment and pulled the door closed behind him.

And he was alone.

Privacy

2009-01-22T12:34:00.002-08:00

I frequently post on a website devoted to small college basketball, and in a post last night made mention that a player in a game I attended unexpectedly did not play. Today I received two messages, nearly simultaneous and entirely independent of one another, informing me that the player missed the game because he had received a significant medical diagnosis, and that he was therefore likely to miss more playing time, perhaps the entire season.

These notes, from well-intentioned people, have raised a number of ethical issues that I have yet to resolve.

The fact that the player in question will be out of action is unquestionably the public's business. Sporting events, even those of the small-college variety, become little more than vigorous exercise periods without fan support, and that takes publicity. The fans have a right, and a need, to know certain basic information, and that includes who is and is not available to play now and in the foreseeable future.

But I can't think of any reason why I need to know the reason he's not playing. I can think of any number of reasons a player could miss six weeks of college action. He could have a knee injury, he could have failed a class, he could have lost favor with the coach for a variety of reasons, or he could be ill. Whether any of these are true, or if the truth lies elsewhere, is extraneous to the only information to which I have a right: that he's out indefinitely.

Personal medical information is routinely spread about athletes, and I've never been quite comfortable about it. I'm even less comfortable when it's information about a 22-year-old student, one who will leave athletics behind him and join the "real world" in a few months. In the "real world," there's an ocean of difference between a knee injury and a dread disease. Suppose he applies for a job, and the prospective employer is a sports fan who, in that capacity, has learned of our subject's illness. Might she be less likely to extend a job offer to someone whose future health may be uncertain? Congress thought so when they passed employment anti-discrimination laws that prevent employers from asking applicants about such matters. Those laws also prevent employers from sharing medical information about their employees, but those laws don't seem to apply to sports organizations, or to colleges for that matter.

Just to complicate matters, one of the reports I received came from the parent of a player who found out from the stricken athlete himself. Leaving aside the veracity concerns that arise in such games of "telephone," does the athlete forfeit whatever privacy rights he may have had by having told a colleague? Assuming that he was aware that in so doing he was probably letting the cat out of the bag, can I infer that he wants people to know? That he'd rather have people know he's sick than make uninformed guesses about his grades or standing with the coach? Even if that's the case, does that give me the right to shout the story through my megaphone? I think the answer is clear; clear enough that I won't even publish the specifics in this blog, which is read only by friends, relatives, and spambots.

But it's not without effort on my part. I like being the source, the authority in my little corner of the sports world. The fact that I heard this story from two sources simultaneously, neither of whom has any good reason to be in possession of the information, suggests to me that the rumor is spreading like wildfire, and no good reporter wants to be caught behind the fireline. The temptation to grab the microphone and interrupt this program with a special news bulletin is nearly overwhelming. I want to be sympathetic and understanding and wish him well, but to do so in the most public forum I have at my disposal is really just a form of self-aggrandizement; the fact that it's based on private, personal information I shouldn't have possession of and have no right to share just makes it that much worse--and at the same time more tempting.

So I'll allow the story to go no further than my inbox, and in this sleepy corner of the internet merely will express my hope that the young man is able to thoroughly overcome his difficulties.

Pitchers and Catchers Report in Three Weeks

2009-01-21T13:15:00.003-08:00

There's about a foot of snow on the ground, even under what little canopy remains in the ravine. The overnight temperature has been in the single digits, with or without a minus sign, for a couple of weeks now. The entire landscape is a tabula rasa upon which new hopes and dreams can be projected. Conditions like these can only mean one thing: baseball season is just around the corner.

44

2009-01-20T13:57:00.002-08:00

Forgive me as I take a temporary two-day hiatus from posting. Yesterday I was at an all-day girls' basketball tournament, organized to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, a man who famously had a dream. Today I have been occupied with the inauguration of Barack Obama who, in becoming the 44th President of the United States, is if not the fulfillment of that dream, at least a significant milestone towards that fulfillment. Blogging takes a backseat. But here's a photo anyway.

Route 200

2009-01-16T11:57:00.007-08:00

Many Americans love their cars. I'm not one of them, but I do love what I can do with one. Since my life of leisure began in 2004, I've visited dozens of National Parks and Monuments, hiked hundreds of miles of trails, and seen thousands of stars in the night sky over a campground. Getting out into what passes for wilderness in our time and place is a balm for the soul. But the truth is, thepart I love most about these trips is the driving.

I am a great aficionado for an empty highway, especially one that leads to distant mountains, or winds through the badlands, or traces the course of a small river. I'll often follow such a road for mile after mile, going far out my way--if I even had a "way" to begin with. As much as I am a slave to my wanderlust, my great driving fantasies always involve following a multistate highway across its entire length, something I've accomplished just once--Route 200.

Like its more famous (and well-traveled) brethren US 2 and Interstates 90 and 94, Route 200 crosses the so-called northern tier of states. As highway numbers go, it is a rarity: a state highway that maintains its number across three state boundaries. (Why this is so, I've not been able to determine.) Along its approximately 1,343 mile course, it takes its enraptured passenger through, along, or over everything a blue highway enthusiast could ask for. It starts as a Scenic Byway around Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, follows the Clark Fork River between the Cabinet and Coeur d'Alene Mountains, crosses the Continental Divide at Rogers Pass, takes in the sweeping plains of eastern Montana and the Badlands of the Upper Missouri River, and ends amidst Minnesota's Ten Thousand Lakes. You can take Route 200 to Missoula or Great Falls, or if you prefer, to Ah-Gwah-Ching (MN) or to Zap (ND). It's the front yard of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and the welcome mat for Lake Itasca State Park in Minnesota, where the Mississippi River begins its journey to the sea. For most of its length, it's an unassuming little two-lane highway, unaware of its own grandeur, and it carries comparatively little traffic, which is best for a scenery-appreciating slow driver like me.

I had intended to tackle the more ambitious US 50 crossing this year, a three thousand mile ribbon of asphalt connecting Ocean City to Sacramento, but my financial situation will not permit this boondoggle. But it still makes a wonderful dream, and it costs very little to dream.

Water

2009-01-15T10:55:00.007-08:00

Water is never far from my thoughts. I find it fascinating and beautiful, and always have. Water is the essential ingredient in everything we find awe-inspiring or beautiful--from waterfalls to glaciers, canyons to beaches. Nothing makes the heart sing quite like a daylong hike to a secluded alpine lake. California's majestic redwood forests are only possible because of fog. Flowing water, taking the form of a vigorous mountain freshet, a lazy lily pond, or the rolling surf of the Jersey Shore, is nature's antidepressant. The snowfields of the Sierra Nevada, the geysers of Yellowstone, the waterfalls of the Upper Peninsula--all of them water.

We all know that fresh water makes life possible, and that it is scarce: less than three percent of the planet's water is fresh, and over 99% of that is locked in icecaps, glaciers, or aquifers. Where you find fresh surface water, you find life in abundance. Only those flora and fauna that are specially adapted for arid conditions are to be found far from the local watering hold. The singular exception to this natural law is humans, whose only natural advantage in dryland conditions is the ability to engineer. For millenia, humans have tried to find ways to survive in the desert, and for millenia they have failed. Modern-day humans have technological solutions to the problem of aridity that their thirsty ancestors could only dream of. Without the ability to reroute the flows of the Feather, Owens, and Colorado Rivers hundreds and thousands of miles from their natural courses, Los Angeles as we know it could not exist. The Great Plains, once one of the world's great grasslands, is now the world's breadbasket, solely because we now have the means to pump vast amounts of water from the Ogalalla Aquifer.

But, just as our desert-dwelling ancestors found, these are not solutions so much as stopgaps. The Ogalalla is being drained far faster than it can be recharged, with the result that a massive second Dust Bowl, probably in our lifetimes, is inevitable. The damming, draining, and delivery of river water far from its natural course is having a lethal effect on western ecosystems, impacting our balance of life in ways we don't yet clearly understand. It seems that humans will try anything to find a way to live where we oughtn't.

And this is another reason why water is never far from my thoughts. I still consider my current living situation to be temporary, and constantly weigh alternative locations for settling down permanently. Many if not most of the places that attract me the most are these "oughtn't" lands. Can I justify living, or even vacationing, in places where human civilization is unsupportable, even if it is in other ways the best place for me? If I want to work on water issues, isn't it hypocritical of me to live in a place where I'm part of the problem?

'Bad' Weather

2009-01-14T08:17:00.003-08:00

We're in the midst of a run of cold, snowy weather, as is much of the United States. There's about four inches of crusty snow blanketing the ravine behind the house, turning what often seems like a chaotic wasteland into a well-planned work of art. The trees, each having found its own preferred angle to the sloping ground, provide a lattice-like framework for the fields beyond. The neighbor's barn, usually a preposterous orange blight, now looks as if Currier and Ives themselves had placed it there. The squirrels and winter birds take to the stage on downed logs that, in the spareness of late autumn, suggested only death and decay. Set against a backdrop of white, the wandering deer appear somehow more majestic, almost like elk seen at a distance. While snow in the front of the house is a nuisance that interferes with modern, civilized life, snow behind the house only enhances and beautifies the natural life.

Learning from the Amish

2009-01-13T08:08:00.004-08:00

I live in the midst of the world's largest Amish community, and I used to think I knew all about them. The truth is, however, that I don't understand them any better than I understand anyone else, or myself for that matter. I know that the Amish don't like to be treated as if they are an alien species; they're just people who pursue a certain lifestyle that makes them stand out from the rest of us. Perhaps that's why I've never tried too hard to probe into their beliefs and reasons for how they live, or maybe I'm just lazy. But I think there's a certain amount that we can learn from observing the Amish from a distance, even if the conclusions drawn from such observations are groundless.

To be Amish, one must be patient. Horse-drawn buggies travel slowly, especially uphill. Clothes take their sweet time to dry on the line. Non-mechanized farming is practically zen-like. Impatience is a form of stress, and while Amish life is far from stress-free, they are professionals at patience.

Eschewing most modern conveniences, the Amish also do without the headaches such conveniences bring with them. Their computers never crash, they seldom worry about the price of gasoline, and power outages mean little to them. They never have to figure out how to hook up a stereo or download a digital camera, and the switch to all-digital television broadcasting will come and go unnoticed. I don't know many people who know much about auto mechanics or internet technology, myself included, but we rely on such technologies to make our modern lives possible. The Amish rarely employ a technology they don't thoroughly understand (cellular phones being the principle exception), and thus forgo the worries that such blind reliance brings.

The Amish are exceptionally good neighbors. There are countless stories of Amishmen coming unbidden to the aid of their 'English' neighbors. I have an elderly friend who lives alone in a small house amidst an Amish neighborhood. Her neighbors keep a close eye on her, charitably providing such services as snow-shoveling while always being aware of any changes in her routine that may suggest trouble. The Amish lifestyle itself is neighborly in a passive way. They're relatively quiet, reasonably tidy people with happy, playful children. They don't keep late hours and don't generate a lot of traffic on the roads.

The Amish lifestyle is difficult, filled with hard work and relatively little leisure. There is little hope for amassing great wealth, and those that do (chiefly through oil and gas found beneath their land) have few ways to spend it. They must endure being treated as a tourist attraction or even a circus sideshow, and they do so with equanimity. I wouldn't want to live the life of an Amishman. But maybe that's because I haven't learned enough yet.