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Today's movie was the continuation of a filming project that has lasted over fifty years and I have been around for most of it>

56 Up (2012)

I am not sure when I caught up with this. I don't think 20 years ago. 25? It cannot be 50 can it?

In any case, I have watched the latest update on these people every 7 years since they were kids.

It is a long trek because there is all this history but the director Michael Apted who was just a researcher on the original program has kept it up and kept in touch and, despite some of the people wanting out, has been able to keep it going and going very well.

In short, it is fascinating.

The people have now become part of the whole thing. They have ideas about the project and their own participation. Sometime reluctant to do it at all.

It is hard to watch because I don't like all of them either. But that is not the point.

That they are all British with British opinions on the system does not hinder.

These are people I have come to know and it is very satisfying to be able to visit with them yet again.

This has to be a 5 out of Netflix5 because I keep coming back to it.

Labels: films

Sometimes I find the right thing for the "wrong" reasons.

One example would be today's film

Un long dimanche de fiançailles / A Very Long Engagement (2004)

It is a film with Gaspard Ulliel who I am "festing". He is the young soldier who is lost on the front in WWI. His fiancé/wife Audrey Tautou does not believe that he is dead and so she tries to track him down.

The search is complicated by the fact that he was muted by battle and a victim of amnesia. He also was under condemnation for desertion. Circumstantial evidence. Harsh treatment. Sent with four others into no man's land without weapons.

This is a long and complicated "detective" story and a vehicle for Tautou told in a style made for her particular bent for whimsy and eccentric acting. This is not a bad thing.

The cast is filled with actors who I/we know. Beautifully integrated into a story which is both horrific and wonderful at the same time.

There are a ton of special effects, movie stuff, that could not be done any other way.

The search goes on and on with false steps, missing links, changed identities and, in one case, even a threat of death if she continues.

The WWI scenes are beyond description.

Transfixed.

Ulliel does not appear a lot in this film but he is pivotal and his face and demeanor are the kind which not only would evoke such a tireless search but his appearances are always rewarding.

I will give this a 4 out of Netflix5.

I would never had seen this if I had not been tracking Ulliel down myself.

I think he is one of those actors who attract inspired work and then is able to make an appropriate contribution.

Labels: films

I had forgotten the heroic proportions of Gary Davis' contribution to my thinking.

Gary Davis Man of No Nation Dies at 91

Here is how he made it into my pantheon.

First, he lived to be 90.

Second, he contributed to my thinking as a young boy, man. He was a born rebel.

I did not know he was the son of Meyer Davis, the "society" band leader. Another story. A fame of time and place. The swing orchestra for dancing affairs which became obsolete.

He was also, I knew this, a musical actor who had risen high. I did not know he had stood in for Danny Kaye. Another famed, forgotten personality. Multi talented and star of stage and screen. No television. I think it killed him, too hot for a vivid performer. Also too late.

Back to Gary Davis. I am evading the point which is that he was the first anti-establishment guy who took my attention in a visceral way.

I could not comprehend his actions. Renouncing his citizenship. My god.

But he had a story and he was consistent and he had a highly focused well ordered argument which he repeated over and over. He was the first guy like this that I admired who "stayed on message".

And he was an action hero. He walked the talk. He had the capacity to really piss people off.

And somehow, the neanderthals were able to see his point. They did not kill him. They hardly captured him. They gave him a stage, inadvertently, by really taking him seriously.

He made me think.

On one hand, he helped me see the fallibility of our nation and our leaders and the idea of nationality. Patriotism. On the other, he created an argument in my head which found its own answer in a kind of tolerant patriotism. One which saw the freedoms expressed in his daily acts. A nation that forgave and forgave and forgave what in another country would have had him killed early in his advocacy.

He was an extremist.

I really liked that.

You might remember that all this was against a backdrop of internationalism. The formation of the UN and other international bodies were, at that time, in the air. He was with his time only way way over there in the outlier column.

I like that he ended his days in Vermont. A citizen of the world, sure. But home was here. Vermont was made for him. Liberal politics and the cold clear weather of reason.

Some said he was crazy. Maybe. But not "that" way.

He was a pacifist too. He had to be once he adopted the international ism. or no nationalism. Different.

I paid a lot of attention to this guy. And then he was gone. Off the stage. The show closed.

They said he could throw his voice to the furthest point in a theater. Here, his voice carried much further than that.

Gary Davis. Hero. He made the cut.

Check this out. Lucid and brave until the end. Well, 2009, which given his life span is a small incremental difference from now to then.

Labels: heroes

We woke up cool this morning.

It is great outside.

It read as 80F on the Volvo.

I know. This is not cool to some but to a desert rat, in the middle of summer, it is cool. It reads as more than that really.

We are set for night temps in the 70s all week.

I think that this is unprecedented. Not to draw any conclusions about it. History says it might just be in my mind.

Real or imagined, I am just glad to have it.

I firmly believe that his summer has been cooler and very dry most of the time. A winning combination.

Last night when Booker and I did our post dinner "walk" (more of a short stroll, eating grass, sniffing posts, until the poop urge comes), the air was what I think of as "convection oven". Quite breezy and very hot (over 100F) and quite dry. It hits the respiratory track like a balm. Sinuses clear. You can feel it. A well constructed sauna.

But we don't bask in it. We enjoy, take it in and do the job we set out to do--then back home.

Occasionally, he will want to roll in the grass to enjoy the situation. I think for the same reason I do. It is clearing. Bracing. He will often drop to the grass and roll around in the midday sun, a true sunbath. This is a hot air bath.

I sometimes join him.

I don't routinely write about the weather here any more.

It is boringly the same. But seasons. Now seasons are worth a writeup no matter what the individual days might bring.

And to me, this season seems definitely cooler. And dryer.

But it is not. It is right with the trends over time.

Temperature Trends

It is remarkably normal. In conversations with people, you will here that it is the hottest ever or the coolest it has been but this is the mind at work. Dramatizing. Either horrificizing or denying the obvious.

One thing is true. The dread "monsoon", any comfort index much over 60, has stayed away.

Even when some moist air crept in it was modest. Easy to handle.

Last week there were a few days that had some water in the air but they dissipated with thunderstorms in the afternoon. Actually little of that. Noise.

When we were first here the thunder and lightning would roll down the sides of the big mountain and crack so loud!

We seem to be out of that.

Does this all add up to climate change. I don't know. If it is cooler or drier who can complain? We do not have to worry about water here yet.

It has been as dry as I remember it. There was a small shower one day this week but not much more than a wet. The deserts are very very dusty and dry. There were no desert flowers this spring.

OK.

That's it.

The weather report from Palm Springs. It is totally predictable and not a surprise but it does trend in a general way from time to time.

Within a week or a day or an hour you would hardly notice.

Labels: weather

Gaspard Ulliel carries a film of longing and despair for an unrequited love.

Never a very happy situation and so this film is filled with frustration and remorse.

Le dernier jour / The Last Day (2004)

Ulliel carries the burden here with grace and dignity and more than a little masochism.

He comes to visit the family only to find the family fractured. On the way he has met a young woman who he invites to come with him. Obvious cover.

A lot of what he does is unconscious and doesn't make any sense until we understand that his real reason to return is to meet a young love Matthieu who, as straight boys do, has grown out of his teen homoerotic phase. This is not an unusual situation. Those straight boys will make you crazy if you hold on to the idea that someday they too will switch sides. I know all about it.

In this beautiful Cape Breton located film there is little relief for Simon and though he tries, he cannot get himself out of it. It does not help that there is no one to talk to but he has set that up with the straw girlfriend.

More complications when we find that the father he hates is not really his father. I suppose this is a spoiler but hardly a matter of suspense in viewing the film. The guy is kind of a dick and so it goes.

It is a sad film but nicely composed, beautiful to watch and achingly beautiful to watch the young Ulliel carry the burden.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films

I first started cooking when I was a kid.

8 years old maybe. Both my parents worked. I was a latchkey kid. I was asked to do a lot of things around the house which I don't think kids "these days" are not expected to do but I don't want to start on that and sound like an old codger. I actually have no idea how kids are raised today or how they learn to cook.

It amazes me that kids or anyone else learns to do anything. I am old enough to look back now and marvel at the prodigies of learning I was able to do.

I imagine actually it is the same today. Most of my kids both work and their kids do the work themselves. OK.

Shit.

How did I get off on that? See? It is very easy for old guys to get into this mode and I have made a vow not to do it but this bs rolled out the ends of my fingers so I will leave it in to let you know I am not really as nice a guy as I may have always seemed to you.

I will start again.

I first started when I was a kid. 8 years old maybe. Both my parents worked. I was a latchkey kid.

The first meal I remember preparing was the Saturday night staple. Standard. Hamburgers and beans. I can still taste them. It.

The beans came from a can. Campbell's I think. The hamburger was the one kind we got from the store. I suppose ground scraps of an indeterminate fat content. It was greasy as hell and I know that I would not serve it today. Heart consciousness has ruined my eating at that level.

Anyway, one thing at a time, I picked up learning to cook. Mostly by trial and error.

I graduated to the kind of cooking my mother did. Overboiled frozen vegetables with the most done meat you ever ate. Hard, stringy. It was what we were used to.

We didn't eat eggs bare. So I didn't learn about the intricacies of that until I went to college and worked as a short order "chef". A grill jockey.

There, everything comes off a hot grill. It all gets mixed up. If the eggs taste like burgers so be it. All day breakfasts. You can still get that taste today if you can find the right greasy spoon diner which are rare indeed.

My business partner Alex was a fan of diners and knew every one in every location in every town in suburban NYC and beyond. I thought I was an expert until I started going to that kind of place with him. I continued that research on my own for many years. We go to a restaurant here whose owners are Greek and come from that era. It shows in their close to the edge cuisine. They serve breakfast all day.

I can still fry an egg and do the bacon on the side if called upon but that is no longer even a thought anymore. How have I lived so long?

Where was I?

Eggs.

In all my cooking, then and later, after all my cookbooks. After all the top of the line cooking equipment, the KitchenAids, the convection ovens, the grill in my own house, I have ended up in a conventional cooking situation. A gas range. A microwave. No baking, well except for the non-yeast rise kind, and no fancy food at one end and no equivalent of diner food on the other.

What about eggs?

I read, some years ago, about a woman who had made it to 90 something and they asked her what the secret was.

She said that she had always eaten an egg a day. Bingo. It sounded right to me somehow.

I started doing it.

Now, I eat two eggs ever day. I am richer now and more affluent than that old lady.

I am not afraid of the cholesterol as I have a lucky heart. A fortunate processing system for a range of fats. Low cholesterol.

But I still eat the egg beater kind for lunch, scrambled with ketchup on a sandwich.

Every other morning, I have two hard boiled eggs because hard boiled is easy and also I love to eat them. Laden with salt incidentally. Fuck the blood pressure.

Now, the payoff of all this blather.

In all my years of hard boiled eggs I have never, ever, unraveled the mystery of the hard to peel egg.

I have tried everything.

The plunge into cold water at the end. The easy boil. The rollaroundinyourhand and sneak up on the shell method. All of it.

Nothing worked.

Until a few weeks ago I went to the internet out of frustration and, once more, asked the question. "How to get easy peel boiled eggs".

And for the first time I found someone who said unequivocally that the age of the egg is the most critical factor and that older eggs were better because the shell had some separation as a result of drying through the shell membrane to the egg itself. It made a small space.

What?

I always have striven for the freshest eggs. Even straight out of the chicken when we had the small truck farm.

NO. The oldest.

Extensive research over the last few weeks confirms this. 100%. Unbfuckingbelievable.

I guess that you can learn something after middle age. Something new. A breakthrough.

Never give up.

Labels: cooking

I will put my cards on the table.

I have a serious crush on Gaspard Ulliel.(Ooo-lay not too far from oo la la)

So, what else to do? I ordered all his films available on Netflix.

The result is to discover that he is in some great movies and is a considerable force as an actor.

I saw him first last week in Strayed and realize that I had already seen him in The Princess of Montpensier.

The next film I have seen was today's movie

Ultimate Heist (2009)

This is the Netflix title but it has also been seen as The Dead List and the french Le premier cercle, meaning sort of "The First Circle". Perhaps slang for heist or something like it.

Fact is, the film has not been released in the US and is only limited in the UK.

That all said, getting to the film, Gaspard plays the good/bad son of an Armenian gang kingpin. This has some meaning in that, in Europe, the Armenian gangs get cut some slack because they are viewed in the light of the Armenian genocide of the Turks. Hence, a good/bad situation where we root for the bad guy because he wants to be good.

The reason he wants to do this seems more rooted in his obsession with a physical therapist come to his Dad's house to take care of his Grandma.

There are somewhat complicated family things but this film is not the cheesy flick that is seems to be set up for. It is a very good family loyalty drama set with the background of a big heist to end all heists.

Yes you have seen this film before and so have I but it did not have Gaspard in it. Nor did it probably have Jean Reno as the father. I say probably because Reno is made for the bad guy hero and, in fact, I imagine he was able to tell Ulliel a thing or two while on breaks from the filming.

A very tight film package here, well directed and luxuriously photographed where the outcomes to a clever scheme remain uncertain until the very end.

My impression is that Ulliel plays a wide variety of roles in films that he attracts to himself or chooses to showcase his considerable talent as an actor and a charisma that is so strong it transcends genre. He has played gay men, we will see him do that, and he is the hero of quite a few gay bloggers who write about film. It is helpful for him that he has his clothes off in the first ten minutes of most of the films I have seen and he is a considerable hunk.

I know the chances of this attracting you might be slim if you are straight and male. But perhaps not. He is a pretty good action hero. They all take their shirts off fast and always have. You love it too.

We will see more of him tomorrow and on for five films I think. A good sample of some of the films he has made.

This one is a 3 out of Netflix5. I am very glad I saw it and look forward to whatever else on offer.

Labels: films, hunks

Today's movie was Teen Wolf Second Season, episodes 4 and 5.A little slower than usual but time to see the new shape shifter, get a better handle on Scott's status as a "lone wolf" and get up to date on the latest transformations of other kids to members of the pack.

I finally realized after some heavy cues that Scott wants to be an Omega or a "lone wolf" and not a member of the pack.

This so he can pursue good deeds for humans and also to keep his relationship with his girl friend Allison.

This is still well worth the time and energy.

I watched a panel discussion between the director, the cast and some fans along with a fairly good moderator.

They try to keep the whole thing on a plane above tan fandom and to be serious about plot mechanisms and making them work.

I am impressed with the writing and the acting, still.

I am with it. I also like that they keep the characters in the third person and talk about them as they are close friends. Relationships.

Labels: films

Today's film is, on the face of it, a conventional teen coming out film.

À cause d'un garçon / Because of a Boy / You'll Get Over It (2012)

Three titles. The French, the two English under which they seem to be having trouble marketing it.

The reason is that the boy, Vincent, does not get over it. Being gay, that is. So that is irony yet it really does not tell the whole story. Hence, I suppose the "Boy" title.

What is also unique is that the film is also about teens growing up. There are at least four but then also the ones who taunt and harass the boy we most want to see succeed.

There is a family too.

I don't think that the film is idealistic or unrealistic about how things actually work for gay teenagers. It is just on the optimistic side and that is OK. Years of teen angst, suicide, suffering and the rest need to be balanced.

That is not to say the teenage boy here is trouble free in coming out. But he gets support when he needs it and sometimes that help comes from surprising places.

In one instance from a very closeted teacher who opens up enough to show his hidden life and the price he pays. Vincent takes note. Vows, as we can see in his face, never to have this happen to him.

There is a nice difficult romance as well. This is where the "cause" comes from. You can run but not hide from love.

I liked it. I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5. Very nice. I am glad I saw it.

Labels: films

A couple of weeks ago, I encountered a representative of the pistachio growers in my Ralphs produce department.

She was fluffing a standup display and I said something to which she replied something and we were off and running in a discussion of the pistachio nut.

I don't know a lot to hold up my end of such a conversation but she did.

She covers a wide territory in the desert "cities". Maybe a hundred stores.

She cited the virtues of the pistachio. Nourishing, lower fat than peanuts and good.

I took a bag.

Oh boy.

She did not say addictive.

My pistachio history is pretty slim. Not many pages in the volume.

I remember the ice cream. Maybe I had some once.

You have to open them but they more than meet you half way. They open up sort of like a clam. Not all of them. A knife is helpful if they get stuck. Maybe an oyster opener would be helpful.

They taste good. No denying..

With John's more than full participation, we polished of that first bag in jig time. So I got two more. Two because I would have a backup bag.

Now it is two bags almost ever trip to the store.

It is pretty easy to ration them because, since they are hard to open, they slow you down.

What I didn't count on is that while I don't eat many on one sitting, they are available for almost any time of day and to easy to grab a handful.

I would not say that we are truly addicted. More a figure of speech.

But they are good and hard to resist.

Be careful about talking to sales reps in the store.

Labels: food

I just finished watching the first two episodes of Teen Wolf, Second Season.

It comes on with a soul stopping rush. Fast. They get an awful lot done in a short half minute of powerful video.

There are new characters and a story line which continues where Season 1 left off, sort of. They have retained the same cast except for one key character who ended Season 1 with a severely slashed throat. A female villain.

They moved the show to LA for this season having outgrown the confines of Atlanta.

Bigger budgets show. More "stuff". Very clever with a limited use of cheesy special effects.

I am hooked again.

Labels: films, television

I have had a long time interest in the unique life of the Romanian people under the rule of the Nicolae Ceausescus.An idle interest to be sure. But I am not Romanian. If I was, this man and his wife would have ruled my life in an iron clad embrace for over 45 years.

I couldn't figure out how the people swallowed this chicanery for so long>

Now, this is all documented in the narration less documentary film

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010),

a NYTimes Critics' Pick.

Composed almost entirely of propaganda clips throughout the era, we see how the people and the world were fed a diet of almost constant praise for the Ceausescus version of the Communist Party which organized for one man rule under a "party congress" dominated by the usual thugs, a tightly loyal military and a regimentation of public spectacle which at least kept a dissatisfied people busy putting on pageants, marching in parades and attending "patriotic rallies". These are the common currency of the totalitarian leader.

The Ceausescus used communism and the communist bloc for the power they needed but they were also the black sheep of the Soviet bloc and caused no end of trouble. Even more isolating and economy and a people who were helpless to grow or fix ingrown problems.

They were very similar in affect to the North Korea of today. A similar "cult of personality", a favorite term of derision of the communist functionaries all over the red world. The accusation of the very thing a state or a party or a dictator was guilty of themselves. This kind of attack is still around. You see it in Washington DC every day.

This thing is three hours long and I had no desire to see the whole thing and I did not. I was at the beginning and the sad end. Sad for the Romanian people. Fatal for the Ceausescus. There are scenes of their kangaroo court trial right prior to their being taken out and shot.

The use of their own stuff against them, leading us to make our own conclusions, is powerful stuff but way too much of it for me.

But I am glad I saw it, or pieces of it, and it did close a door for me that I did not know I had opened. I was just so interested, even obsessed with these people. Hard to figure. Now, banal bullshit has cured me. I will not have to type their fucking name again.

I will give this a 3 out of Netflix5.

This is not on the film I saw. It is the gruesome outcome and may be hard for you to watch so be careful.

Labels: dictatorships, films

Patrick Wang's film about love and loss finds another solution.

The old battle lines are briefly revisited but when lover dies intestate leaving the man with whom he shares his life the responsibility for his son, the man who is left with little on his legal plate to handle the outcome has to turn to other means.

An old retired lawyer for whom he is doing extensive renovation work volunteers to come to the situation and help resolve it.

There are many sad moments in this lovely film but there are moments of pure joy which make whatever pain there is worthwhile.

The meetings of the two men to become lovers, the relationship between the kid who loves dragons and the Dad who makes up stories about them, who builds little tributes with his hands to give as souvenirs, the kindness of the old retired lawyer that lays like a balm on the pain of all the family.

The style of this film is deliberate and slow. Slow entrances and exits. Fixed cameras. Wang wants us to see and hear and feel it all. And, I think he succeeds with a splendid set of characters who are blessed with the skills of the actors who step into them.

It is a play. A story. A carefully crafted set of dramatic touches all of which turn real before our eyes.

There are sad tears, tears of worry and happy tears. There are a lot of laughs. From the get go.

And there are surprises. Expected pain and conflict are somehow set aside in favor of family.

That is the name of the film, after all.

In the Family (2011)

This is a 5 out of Netflix5.

It is too bad that it did not receive the promotion that would have gotten it wider distribution.

Labels: films

A little known fact is that I grew up in and on church music.

Old hymns are part of my musical soul.

I bet you didn't even know I had a musical soul did you?

It is the only part of church that I really got.

My mother and my other family, her sister Aunt Flora and my female cousins particularly, sang hymns all the time. Around the house. While working, ironing, doing the day to day.

My mom was a good singer. She had a light soprano and it cut through to the heart. A fond memory. But my mom was a bible thumper and that took the beauty out of it.

The cousins were also, along with me, among the most profane people I have ever been with. But we all loved the hymns.

We sang them seriously and also made fun of them. We were touched by them emotionally. For us, church was an emotional experience that had little to do with the religion.

But the religion did come into it because we were old school Methodists.

I was to become a church organist and choir director, paid but really an amateur like most of them in those days. I worked with other Methodists and also Baptists (the liberal American kind but they still love those old hymns) and Evangelical United Brethren who eventually joined up with the Methodists. Who are all bastards today. Anti everything. Especially gay.

Nothing much stuck. I was even able to let go of my resentments against the church and the churchy people whose gospel was "mind everyone else's business".

But the music stuck.

It still goes through my head today. There are many hymns that I remember all the words to. Some more than one verse.

Today, it is "Jesus Calls Us".

You must remember it.

Jesus calls us, oe'r the tumult

Of life's wild and restless sea.

Day by day, his sweet voice soundeth saying Christian*, follow me.

(*)I think christian but I am not sure)

Is that weird or not?

I still get an emotional kick out of them too. A few chills.

I think that this is because of the music. Terrific lines of notes that fit the emotional spectrum that all good pop and other thematic music touch. The chord progressions too.

This is a science as well as an art and I have read a lot about it but I could not do it to save my ass. Write a good song. Or hymn.

It has nothing to do with theology. It has nothing to do, for that matter, with Jesus although the Jesus impulse to love and kindness does remain with me after all the horsehit is taken away.

This has to be heard with a singing congregation. It is the way I hear it.

Labels: hymns, music

Today I watched the first half of Patrick Wang's masterpiece of understatement

In the Family (2011),

a NYTimes Critics' Pick.

A gay couple have a boy, the son of one partner left after the death of his wife.

That partner dies in an accident and the other partner who, by this time, is also the other Dad, grieves with the boy.

Along comes the will and it turns out there are complications. The family is left as both the executor and the custody of the boy in an outdated will.

This gentle document of the problems inherent when people are not protected by marriage or thick documented instructions is not approached from the usual strident negative behavior of the family, although there is some.

Its approach is through the experience of the Dad who is left.

Wang wrote and directed and stars. He is a force of considerable strength. He is, after all, going against all the odds to get his son back.

First, he finds friends. Then professional help and, I sense, some surprises along the way.

There is enough of the relationship between the two men and the boy to show us what went before. There are a few rich flashbacks to show the guys falling in love out of the disaster of a lost spouse.

The film is 3 hours long and needs it to tell the story as I have seen it so far. I just can't go the distance in one sitting.

I had no trouble leaving because I feel the confidence of the director. I am in good hands.

It is hard to get that but an essential skill of movie makers as well as authors of books. I know that I am being treated as well as the characters with respect and kindness.

Wang deals gently with the issues of gay men, the families they belonged to before and, here, the issue of race. All this takes place in Tennessee. A not inconsiderable circumstance.

Here a memory of the first family meeting with the new boyfriend.

Labels: films

Booker and I took an unprecedentedly long walk after dinner.

He was up for it and so was I.

He and John did a shortish walk. We went all the way up to the ball field. The PS Power. They were having a home game although I think all their games are at home because they have a semi-pro stadium which is still in good condition since the Angels days. And they run the league. College age boys, free agents and sub-minor teams where they are being scouted for Spring Training (already) having not been called up for this year.

When we came here, they were the Palm Springs Heat. That was more the college boys. And other communities got their teams together too. In the area. San Diego. North from there.

The structure has changed now as well as the name.

It is the Palm Springs Power.

Now, it is a closed league run by the Power itself and includes a wide range of players. Free agents, some rejects from the last spring training and so on.

They live and work on a shoestring. I think the business model is half charitable. He sells ads for "broadcast" in the stadium during games and they are also on a local station. And they charge admission. A lot of people go.

I noticed last night they have misters over the mostly bleacher seating.

If you don't know about it, and most people here do not, here is the rundown.

Frank Bruno has a wise article today about living and not living together lover/partners, maybe not husbands though.

Of Love and Fungus

My experience, our experience, leads us to agree with Bruni.

We just clench inside when a young couple says they are going to move in together.

"Too soon", I want to shout.

Fortunately for us, we were fighting so much in the beginning, that it was obvious that we needed "our space" as they say.

And they say that for all the right reasons.

There are two kinds of couples. Well, many more, but it makes a nice diagram.

Those for whom living with someone else has always been their mode. Parents, room mates, and maybe, lovers.

Being a serious boyfriend and eventual lover and husband is different. Find out who you are before you try the turbulent waters of a serious love.

Serious love is exhausting. If for no other reason, you need the rest between sessions. Reflection. Also, some time looking at why you have never wanted or needed to be alone.

The other kind are those who have never lived with someone else.

I was an only child. I had a double, then a single then a double then a single in college.

I got married. Pow.

Very tough. But, the default position for straight marrieds is to stay together and have kids. Even if you are really gay.

When I came out, I had to live alone because that was my circumstance. I also needed privacy to experiment. To be with other men on my own turf and theirs. To learn the difference between liking someone a lot and lusting after them a lot and, the third most difficult option, loving them a lot in the way that produces country and pop music.

Sex with a powerful difference. So much MATTERS!

I did have a gay room mate once but that was to protect me from myself and John. Our drive to live together was almost intolerable but then so were more than a day, then two days, then maybe three and that is it of being together in one place. Impossible. Him and me.

We needed a brake.

We tried living together a couple of times and came to grief. Then, on the final try, bingo.

What made the difference? Time. Simple time.

And separate isn't bad. I like Bruni's examples.

There is the arrival after time apart.

Thunder and lightning.

The feeling that we are somehow carrying out an affair even though there isn't any one else.

Going out on dates to dinner, the theater, the movies, for walks. Treats.

Sex. The thrill of the withheld touch, the sudden grasp or lunge. The waiting for it.

Then, as Bruni is finding out, other discoveries are made. The difference between waking up frightened and alone and, on the other hand, frightened and within arms reach, a touch, from a beloved other. Instant peace.

The sharing of lives. Some things just cannot be done on dates. Having a dog? Tough. And all the rest.

We had some trial and error. We were not afraid to separate, especially when the big challenges came. Difficult.

I, for one, had to learn about me and relationships once more. The graduate school. Alone after having had a wonderful life with someone else that didn't work out the first time.

Willingness to let that first time be the last time until it could work again. Courage. Dating all over again. Such an important lesson. Crucial.

Labels: life, marriage

We awoke to very heavy rain and lightning this morning and an upset airedale.

Booker had tried the one bathtub and then the dressing room but both were found wanting so he recruited his Dads who are finely attuned to these conditions, even with earplugs in my case, and are ready to fly into action.

Close the big blinds on all the north windows. That is where the flashing is.

Turn on the classical music station. Pray for lots of full orchestra and tympani.

If there is time, get out the "thunder shirt" which works but is a bastard to put on and hardly ever gets on in time so we just about always scuttle it. Two Dads hugging close are almost as good.

Walk to the remaining windows and see the flashes indirectly. Sort of a light brush of light.

If possible go out and see it, leash ON! Come back in when he wants to and don't go if he does not.

The leash is insurance against the blind run. He has never done it for any pyrotechnics but he has done it for a coyote who needed to be chased out of the complex at 3AM. Brave under the influence of adrenaline, airedale adrenaline being especially potent.

He paces. We pace with him.

He breathes very heavily. We hold him when he wants it.

He trembles. We pat his back and let him do it under the theory that it is letting the bad spirits out.

We get a cup of coffee because we are up. Up.

This was not too bad. It was almost 4AM, about the longest that I can stay there and doze. I have a short dozing fuse. There are things to fucking do!

We talk to him. It is a nice family activity. He is a very brave guy. He appreciates it all. We can tell.

Breakfast and a pee if you can do it are a great settler. The rain stopped so we went out and he went as far from the house as he could to do it. Not sure what that is about but it is a standard when he is upset.

By the third breakfast item (cut gala apple dessert), he is easier and things have also settled down.

They say, without knowing, that the mountains got the same downpour. Good if the electric didn't start up any more fire.

And didn't it rain. Buckets. The desert. The rain hasn't been here for awhile so let it go, rain. Special. The kind that closes roads and, not today, often shuts down the power system.

Things are all quiet now. A life resumed.

Labels: weather

Helen Thomas, the infamous White House reporter, died yesterday at 92.

Helen Thomas Who Broke Down Barriers at the White House.

There hardly seems a time when Helen Thomas was not reporting the news from the White House.

An indefatigable prober, Ms. Thomas forged a reputation for the sharp question and even sharper aside.

She was an objective reporter through and through but she had a killer instinct as a bullshit detector. A good skill to have in all of DC.

You would think that with so much bullshit it would be easy to point out but it took courage and resourcefulness to get by the wiliest of politicians.

No one remembers much about Lyndon Baines Johnson the uber-bullshitter of all recent time, but he was a master and Helen Thomas could take him down. In public. In a press conference held to sooth the public's mind.

And that goes for every other President as well.

She used to piss me off some. Lack of respect. Abandoning context. But she was right more often than not and what Helen Thomas saw, we eventually all saw clearly.

Other journalist/reporters followed her lead. She was a mentor at many levels.

Towards the end, she got a little funny here and there. We all do. But she was a vehement detractor from the Iraq wars and she was right.

She was rude and she was memorable.

“How would you define the difference between a probing question and a rude one?” she was asked.

“I don’t think there are any rude questions,” she said.

She would not be pushed around.

*esrosedotblog heroes and heroines qualify by being 90 or older and have my admiration. I don't know which is more difficult, actually. When I am someone's hero, I will let you know.

I do know that a weird combination of humility and curmudgeonship is a good start.

Labels: heroes

Today's film is the wonderful work of Pablo Larraín

No (2012)

in which Gael Garcia Bernal plays a detached ad-man who drives the "NO" campaign against Pinochet in the plebiscite that toppled the infamous dictator, an American stooge, to get rid of "commie" Salvador Allende who then became a super villain. Torture, disappearance, beheadings. Goons.

Bernal is perfect as this comfortably cynical ad man who has considerable success with things like soda and other light stuff.

When asked to participate in the "NO" campaign, an amalgamation of various, mostly leftist, splinter parties he is appalled at their boring negative ads and tries to get then to use a new ad-ish approach.

The biggest battle in this film is really about shifting these people from their rhetoric to the idea of selling themselves.

Aside from Bernal, Larrain has recruited a host of Chilean actors who manage to convey everything from menace to dogmatism through to a loser mentality. Once converted, they band together as an irresistible force.

The film is wry and has a bit of a tongue in its cheek but it is factual and when the goons show up to scare the campaigners there is plenty of suspense even when we know how it turned out.

If you forget or don't know, Pinochet was removed by the vote he tried to suppress and the generals who read the real results and saw the handwriting on the wall.

This is a genuine piece of archeology which is conveyed first thing with the realization that this is "filmed" with old video cameras. A step back in time.

Even the model railroad is the Lionel O gauge. A blast from my past.

I really liked this film and it will go in the Bernal collection to be seen and savored again.

Of course, it helps that I was "there".

A 5 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films

In today's movie, boy meets girl under supernatural conditions.

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Small town, new girl in school, more than the usual lightning, a haunted house and a precocious young man, Jimmy Stewart type, refreshing in this day and age.

Very nice, funny, good scenery chewing by the name actors and some special effects that don't bound too, too far from the expected.

I enjoyed it. The film has a light heart.

The young leading man Alden Ehrenreich is a delight if not a hunk.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films

The other day I made banana bread in a fit of nostalgia.

Also because this time of year we get over ripe bananas on a regular basis.

I am not sure why as the temperatures in the house are always at 77-78 winter and summer.

Maybe it is just that the bananas do have to live a very short while in the outside air on the way to Ralphs and even more briefly on the way home.

But it is as cool at Ralphs as our house, cooler!

In any case, in out or all around, the bananas get overripe and it is sad to throw them out.

So, I had a craving for banana bread which cannot be satisfied in the baked section of Ralphs, so I had to raid the baking materials department. I had no baking powder. No shortening which my recipe calls for in the old Better Homes Cookbook.

I had just bought the right size bake pan for another thing baked cake kind of thing, salmon loaf. I have made little hand formed loaves for years and baking them in the cast iron pan but they sometimes slump and it is not really the right thing to use. Even though I am the master of the improvised utensil.

So, I got my ingredients together. I had everything else. And I figured I would try without shortening and use oil.

So far so good.

Some quick breads use it, why not the banana.

I do not have a mixer. That got left in Boston 16 years ago. A KitchenAid which I loved but I had already decided that my retirement would not be marked by cooking or baking. Nothing more complicated than, well, a salmon loaf.

Mix by hand. Two minutes after the slow mix? OK.

I made an effort.

The bread rose well. It has to sit overnight to "settle" so I had the first of it this morning.

It tastes and chews good. The color gets darker from the top to the bottom, the result of raising I think. Also perhaps that I didn't mix it enough. Or perhaps I needed to mash the banana more. Or less. Or was it the shortening?

Hard to tell. Too many variables.

But look at the photo. It is darker toward the bottom of the bread also.

I will get some shortening to see. Or not. I am not sure that there will be any repeat. But in the meantime, a snack for the freezer and occasional eating. I made it so that it will yield two servings straight from the freezer to the microwave (12 seconds) then to the table or mouth.

Labels: cooking

Today's film was André Techine's

Les égarés / Strayed (2003)

France has been invaded and Odile, a mother with two kids, is on the road. Evacuation.

There is strafing. Everything blows up with the car.

A young man, teenager actually, takes over and helps them escape to a villa not too far from the scene.

They lie low there. Isolated, for awhile, from the world and its terrors.

Not exactly an idyll but close enough.

Relationships develop between the four. Each has a story which is slow to unfold. But unfold it does.

Character comes into play as well as the elements of survival without class or cultural separations.

This is a lovely film with an ugly backdrop which rises to engulf the four people. It is inevitable.

But in the meantime, things happen which are more natural in a way than their lives before this.

Emanuelle Bart and the beautiful Gaspard Uliel star as the couple who find and then lose each other.

This is war. War is hell.

An intense film which has a lot to say and does so in a short, beautiful way. Techiné is a master. This film is a small gem.

Techiné draws my attention because of his reputation with gay themed or gay inclusive films. This is not one of those but it does show his firm hand with uncertain relationships. People who would not normally mix, thrown together without any warning or preparation.

Lost in time.

I enjoyed the film and the acting. The bucolic background is beautiful. The ugliness of war is far away. For awhile.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films

Today is the day that gay marriage became the law of the realm.

Long live the queens.

Especially the Queen who signed the royal decree.

Image idea from Bill in Exile.

Labels: gay marriage

There was a time when I would have puked over a short video like this. Now, I am all heart and soul.

Two dogs will do that to you.

Labels: dogs

Today's film by Eytan Fox was

Walk on Water (2004)

I wanted to see this because Fox also directed the acclaimed Yossi and Daggar and Yossi the followup film.

This one has also a gay theme but quite differently realized and not at all at the center of the plot which is a sort of "how will it end" kind of duel between the values of the old style Israeli Mossad (kill them all) and a newer breed of Israeli (forget all that and get on with life).

Strangely, or not too strangely, this is realized when the Mossad guy is assigned to shadow the German grandson and granddaughter of a war criminal, thought to be dead, who is hanging out in South America.

The old guard wants him gone.

The agent is assigned as a tour guide for the German grandson who I knew was gay the second his plane landed. A survival skill for all gay men. Of course this eludes Eyal, the agent, until later when he will find that many of his assumptions about "the gays" are quite wrong.

The two become friends, finally, and the business of the last war is taken care of in a unique way and, well, you will see if you watch this.

Fox clues us in, as we go along, that there will be nothing to fear from where this kind, of sort of, platonic love story goes. Good. I was apprehensive. In his first film one of the guys gets killed and in the second the hero is an asshole. A redeemed asshole but still, it is a long journey.

I liked just about every bit of this film's story. A new and unique buddy film with some of the aspects of a road movie thrown in for good measure. I would definitely not mind seeing it again. A 4 out of Netflix5.

And no, the straight guy is straight and the gay guy is gay and as you might expect the twain only meet in fanciful fairy tales.

Labels: films

I went to see Dr. Jim about my blood pressure today.

The purpose was to review the last month's records of my own machine and to calibrate that with his. Also, more importantly, to test whether the experiment to half my Lisinopril was successful.

We succeeded on all counts.

The readings for the last month have been better than good and my machine calibrates with his more sophisticated equipment.

We have done this double check before and I guess it is a feature of all future visits. No problem with that.

I am in a good range of blood pressure and he will permanently set me at half the amount of the drug.

Good news. Not only for me but for Medicare. I am less expensive for "them" as a result.

I had hoped, and still do, that I could stop using meds for this entirely but he is not too optimistic about that. It is hard to go backward after treatment. Huh?

Labels: health

Today's "film" were the final two episodes of the great series Teen Wolf (2011-2013). There will be two more seasons, maybe three.

I don't have any idea how it is to see this show a week at a time but even viewing it two weeks at a time in bite size chunks is very intense.

The finale, as expected, was conclusive. They don't yet know about renewal so they need an ending of sorts and viewers absolutely need resolution of what seem to be myriad loose threads. Although not too many to keep a pretty good grasp of what is going on.

But, again, no surprise, there are enough loose ends to make a second season almost mandatory for viewers who like the show. Of which I am now one. Make that two.

It has been a long time since I became as emotional at a climactic finish. The creator and series runner Jeff Davis has done a masterful job. Russell Mulcahy is the show's director for the first season. He had previously taken a shot at an aborted version of the original film and was brought back for this version. Both obviously very talented guys with a strong sense of purpose in the project.

There is no question about continuing with Season 2. We are hooked.

What do we like? The young star Parker Posey is perfect in the role. His werewolf look is as handsome and studly as his (real) teenager look is a little dorky. There is a third personna which is sort of in-between these two. A transitional stage when he is using his powers in a sort of ad hoc way to make something happen for him that has not been going his way.

The romance angle is very well played between Posey and Crystal Reed (photo).

She is quite mature for him which is good as she is often a step ahead. In the same way that his best friend pulls a lot of weight as the geeky thinker (Dylan Obrien). Reed is credible as a girlfriend but there is still something else which she has as part of her identity yet unrevealed in this season.

There are other unresolved characters. Not serious loose ends but very interesting nonetheless.

This thing is a five out of Netflix5 all the way. It is even occurring to us that me might want to buy the discs as there is a tendency to ditch the sets when they begin to lose sales momentum. That would mean it would be tough to see it again as Netflix follows the lead when their inventory wanes. Film classics do not last forever either.

All media product is perishable with a definite past due date.

Labels: films, television

There is a serious forest fire in the Santa Rosa mountains.

It is one of the most fire prone areas around here.

Since we have been here there have been big fires almost every year.

I drive to San Diego through that part of the mountains, Route 74 and on 371 through Anza to 79 and west into Temecula. There are blackened areas everywhere. One good thing is that since this is an alpine area, for the most part, the stuff grows back and heals up pretty well year to year.

We can see the fire itself and we have smoke so that there is no sun. There is a lot of ash, almost like wispy snow on the roads that blows around the same way. It is a hit from the past to see it early morning in the dark.

There are flakes in the air and a dusty look to the air when it passes through the headlight beams. Otherwise, there are never headlight beams.

There is a very big animal sanctuary up there and the rumor is that it had been evacuated with the fire very close to it when they bailed out. Too bad if it is gone.

At 3 AM this morning, the flames on this side of the mountain were spectacular. Huge, high, a deep deep red. This lasted for a half an hour then burned out as the fire went around to the other side.

Terrible to contemplate.

I got John up to see it which was good timing as that was its peak.

It is all pretty close as the crow flies. Maybe ten miles. The way the land lies here, you can be fairly close to something and very far away at the same time. It would take an hour to drive to where this is going on.

Labels: fire, weather

Teen Wolf continued today.

I am in the third and final disc of the first season.

There are two more episodes today and things are rushing towards an obvious climax.

Obvious only in the sense that most of these series have an ending at whatever season as they do not know if they will return.

How is that for a flimsy rationale? A rationale to cover the anxiety of what is happening in the series. Totally outside the plot, I seek comfort in knowing it will all work out. Somehow.

This is a superbly crafted work with a hurtling speed forward and not a second wasted on superfluous narrative.

I think that this is very very hard to do without seeding confusion and discontent in the viewer's mind.

It is a complicated business this werewolf thing. There is the Alpha. We did not know who he was among the various suspects until today.

He needs to form a pack. Teen wolf Scott (Tyler Posey) is a "recruit" in that he is not a born member of the species. He is being recruited by his frenemy Matt (another Tyler, this one Hoechlin) whose loyalty has to be to the pack. Matt is a born not a born again.

The best friend Stiles (Dylan Obrien who is great) is a superbly designed aid to Scott who is trying to protect himself from packdom but it is clear that it is a losing battle.

Matt needs his help to combat the "hunters" who are dedicated to wiping out all wolves.

Scott is in the middle of the deal because, well, it goes on all around him, the battle.

All of this has worked its way through the ten episodes I have seen and now, it is payoff time. Join or else.

There are more members. I won't go into it. But, as it turns out a lot of people have been turned already or are turning. One is the handsome and irksome dick/jock Jackson (Colton Haynes) (photo) He is about to get his fangs whether he wants them or not.

There are no spoilers here. What are sometimes shocking events should be savored and saved for your own pleasure.

The film is quite sly about its homoerotic tinges. It clearly wants the wide audience it deserves and knows that "we" are watching.

This is nice to see. There is a young, out, handsome gay man on the team and he is, actually, Jackson's sidekick which makes Colton Haines a suspect as well. There are, hard to believe but true, gay jock/dicks who are also good looking enough to get away with it.

There are lots of shirts off scenes and only Stiles is immune from what must be the daily required workouts to keep up the side's hunkness.

This is not, of course, why I am watching this but I must admit it was what got me started. A rep as the most gay of the new series. Deserved.

Labels: films, television

This was in the NYTimes Book Review

Labels: books

You may recall that I jumped into the Kindle with four feet.

I have been using it for awhile.

I like it very much.

I like the physical part of it. Handheld. Light. Easy to read. Flexible. I got the Paperwhite 3G so it will work on my home wireless or, away, on a free phone line signal, anywheresville.

I like the "plan". The way the software works. It is fairly easy to navigate and successfully intuitive.

I have bought enough books to know that it will work for me on a variety of reading. Nonfiction. Fiction. Novelty books, I bought Demetri Martins sort of cartoon book. It reproduces art very nicely.

I am not sure of photos. I am reading a biography with photos which are clear enough but not quite big enough. This could be the real book's situation too or not. Photos are rarely clear enough or large enough for me in any books especially when they are not on glossy inserts.

I am using it in the gym every day. I am using it pretty much the way I would read a real book but it has one advantage. I can decide at the gym which book I want to read of those in the works (usually three books at a time) and I can read this one, then that one, even another one if I wish.

Disappointments? Few. I was expecting better prices for the Kindle. More of a 9.99 ceiling, and that is not the case. Especially the newer ones.

I am disappointed in the Lending Library, see below. But since it is an extra cost item, it is not something I expected as part of the basic package.

Not a criticism, but there are a lot of features that I will not use.

I do not underline or fiddle around with a book. You can do this on the Kindle but I won't. I have not yet used the feature of definition. Hold your finger down on the word and you get a definition or a small explanation.

All in all, it is a success.

I cannot, unfortunately take a read book and give it to John to read. Or give a used book to the library. But John doesn't want to have a Kindle. The library has no idea.

Labels: kindle

I got this book because it was the first title I recognized in the Kindle Lending Library which I joined on a thirty day trial.

That said, I have to admit that I liked some parts of this future fantasy science fiction piece. It is, for the most part, a tour de force.

The Hunger Games (2008)

I had, of course, seen it before and was aware of the film. I was certainly aware of Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutchinson, both young actors I admire a great deal.

But I had not put the film in my queue.

It seemed too squirelly for me. Nasty, somehow.

I am an old fan of fantasy fiction usually of the sword and sandal variety. Other worlds with bending similarity to our own. I liked dragons.

Then I tired of the whole business and "flop", they all passed from my life as suddenly as they came in.

This is an old pattern for me. Get into it as intensely as possible and then burn out and drop the entire thing.

Like my fascination with certain singers or musicians (Rufus Wainright or Van Halen). Buy every song or DVD play them over and over. Suddenly throw up.

This is the backdrop to reading the Games.

First and foremost, I did like it. Clever, fast moving, exciting. A page turner. A great world construct. Sadism and more than a little masochism thrown in. Your fantasy fiction hero/heroines have to suffer and most of them like it. This book is for young adults which is not a bad thing. I enjoy reading a lot of this category. I liked the characters. The villains were unambiguous.

When I got finished I realized this was the first book and there would be another. Too late. Although I think I would have read it even if I knew there would be a sequel or that the books were being published as a series.

This left the ending ambiguous and a bit painful. The two principles are still at odds. The female has doubts. The male does not.

She has another platonic male friend who just might be a romantic friend.

My view is that she is a typical example of the indecisive female which is not a good message. On the other hand she is a strong decisive young woman. Emotionally insecure? Just another cock tease?

I read that this is typical of young adult fiction. Female with two boyfriends trying to decide something other than the immediate choices.

That is one view. It is her not him.

Or is he a male dupe. The usual sappy sex driven guy who just thinks he loves the girl. What he really wants is to get into her pants.

I hate this kind of thing. It is a lousy and unrealistic message to young people to say nothing of mature adults. Particularly homosexual ones. I want my straight people to be happy and well adjusted.

In other words, liked the adventure, hated the love story. Unrequited love story.

Two things.

I do not plan to read the next book. No more of this back and forth.

I am not into it.

I am glad that I read it, I enjoyed it. It was free because I got it from the Lending Library deal so that gave it a more positive spin. Not enough.

The second decision is that I am opting out of the 70 dollar a year lending library because it seems to me that most if not all of the books are of this middle brow variety and I actually can't find one I haven't read or never heard of.

I already cancelled.

Labels: books, kindle

I love the idea of becoming anonymous in the world.

Of course, that is only a thought and an impulse.

My bow to my introvert. The loner.

But there are people who do it and actually pull it off.

When these people get into trouble, they have a way to continue to be who they are not. Who they do not want to be.

Unidentified Defendants Have Bedeviled Courts for a Decade

As it turns out, this will not get you out of the trouble you are in but you will still be unknown.

Hilarious.

Fnu Lnu.

You can almost pronounce it.

An oriental gentleman with a hazy country of origin.

There is a literature of Fnu Lnus.

Usually there is some other thing going on. Sometimes they go all the way like The Invisible Man

As to whether I would ever do such a thing, I suppose not.

The other character defect in conflict with this one is that I have a huge ego problem. Don't you know who I am?

So, it is just an amusing notion.

It is a great article. Fun. Not fun for the people that have to deal with these guys.

I get the impression that it is only men. Don't have a handle on that one.

Labels: criminal behavior

Korean moviemakers excel at a kind of melodrama which depicts the depravities of the super rich in a way that allows us peasants to enjoy the scenery while feeling superior.

Today's film was one such luscious example. Im Sang Soo's

The Taste of Money (2012)

A young salary-man for a super rich family gets drawn into business and sexual (the line is thin) intrigues and finds that everything costs more than you think.

We, on the other hand, get to watch his extremely handsome self get taken in while tut tutting through every step.

I make it sound distasteful but this is anything but. It is a rich and mind-blowing visit to another world. Well done.

Kim Kang-woo plays the role of the skillful executive assistant to the head of a small family clan. Or the seeming head. He is simply a great and charismatic presence. A hero. Even a moral center in a world of corruption. Until he gets "a taste of money". Actually, in the second or third scene, in the family safe.

It is a bit trashy but in a good way and the maudlin ending leaves a bad taste, just a bit. But it is well worth watching and I am glad that I did.

An easy 3 out of Netflix5. The film does not ask to be seen again. It delivers the first time and leaves a small bonus in our heads for our service in watching.

Labels: films

It is rare to see a film that is just simply "nice". Period.

Today was that rare film.

O Som ao Redor / Neighboring Sounds (2013)

This NYTimes Critics' Pick by Kleber Mendonça Filho, a Brazilian film critic. A lot of these guys end up making their own films. The entire French New Wave was made up of former critics.

In this very carefully crafted film, we see a middle class neighborhood. It is in "transition" as they say. Small simple houses mixing now with high rises. The higher you go in a building, the snottier you can get.

There are a manageable number of people who we watch passing their day. Continuing stories. Some connected. A few are related through an Uncle who turns out to own a lot of the property and is a bit of a godfather to the whole tribe.

A "protection" business comes along. We are led to believe that it might be shady. Someone says that there was a rash of auto break-ins just as these guys came around to sell their service. But we know who is stealing the CDs out of cars. There is this kind of interweaving of stories.

Some people will go through this film not ever seeing or knowing about the others while a few will have either direct contact or glancing collisions in their daily rounds.

The security guys get the job and become the night watch although it is not clear how they are getting paid as they seem indifferent to that issue. Weird.

There are other weird aspects.

The film opens with old black and white photos of peasants. This is a setup for another thread, the involvement of poorer people as servants to these residents. Almost every residence has one. And they are part of the life in one way or another and also have their own society. Upstairs Downstairs.

Little by little we see history emerge. Backgrounds. Connections. Nice.

There is an ending which is a quite logical one but which I found very surprising and even shocking.

There are sounds all the time. He plays with us. They are loud or soft. They are neighbors talking. There is a long running joke with a barking dog. There are some totally hilarious bits in here. LOL moments. A bored woman finds a totally creative way to get stoned and masturbate while her kids are in the next room.

The sounds do portend and foreshadow. There is an extremely disturbing piece in the middle in which the neighborhood seems to be invaded by a large gang of intruders. Over the fence. Inside.

And, of course, the presence of the security guys which is justified by their good works is seen as a good thing but then, well, some not so good things. A bit ominous.

I did not see the payoff of all this coming. I would like to go back and visit his film again and watch for the signs, if any. It would not be boring in any case. Every one of these people is worth watching and we do not get tired of them. They surprise, they amuse, they make us think. Like normal people in a neighborhood.

This is a 5 out of Netflix5. It will re-enter my queue when they get it back. I will need to see it again.

Labels: films

Penis envy, if any, should be based on statistics.

New Research Reveals That Average Penis Size is Much Smaller When You Stop Lying About It

When I was a kid, gym class was a horror. Locker room, required showers.

We took our class, as freshman, with the older sophomores.

George Seese, the bully extraordinaire of the older guys, took a look at my naked form and remarked that I needed "some pussy cheese" on my dick. Too small.

Here were two conundrums. One was whether George's assessment was true and second, what the hell "pussy cheese" was.

The answer to the first, like how did I shape up, was not easy to determine because as a shy, gay boy in the making I was actually afraid to be caught looking around at everyone else's equipment.

And there was no way that I was going to ask anyone about the cheese.

George Seese was the same kid that cornered me in the boy's rest room, when I was in first grade, and called me "wart nose". I did have one. But I picked it off. It bled a little but it was gone. Couldn't do that about the penis.

So, the relative size of my penis became a lifetime distraction. Well, my life up to a certain age, when I found out about the distinction between grow-ers and show-ers. Also the effect of anxiety on how it hangs down there. More worry, less hang. And so on.

Fortunately it was not too many years until I had the chance for up close inspection which, in fact, some boys welcomed. Me too. I also found that almost every man has some shit going on about the bigness of his business.

In the talk that followed, I gained some feedback on my own dimensions which put me solidly in the average category of sizeness. Maybe the lower averages, but still, not a pindick.

George Seese went on to have an awful life and I would like to report that he turned out to be a raving raging queen or something like that but he got his in a nasty auto accident.

I was good friends with his brother Warren who had all kinds of info on George and his intimidation potential, for me, decreased accordingly.

George did have a piece of work down there though. He had something to flaunt. Gotta say that for him.

Labels: sexuality

If you think you know everything there is to know about the Immigration Bill(s), take a look at this presentation. I thought I knew it all but did not. Now I know a lot more.

Labels: Administration Obama, imm

There is no doubt today's Israeli film is a sequel, violating one of esrose.blog's main viewing criteria.

But it is a gay film and another "rule" is that all gay themed films catch a break.

This one

Yossi (2012)

comes after the generally well received Jossi and Jagger (2002)

It is ten years after the death of Jagger in battle. Jossi is now an internist and has become a nebbish in the process of grieving, going further back into his closet. Hidden in his body to say nothing of his sadness.

Attempts to break out have little effect. Visiting Jagger's parents who do not want to hear about it, hooking up on the internet where his physical appearance is so different from his picture he gets rejected on the face of him. Finally, working himself into a stupor, he takes a vacation and good fortune strikes. Four soldiers need a ride and one of them is gay, out and proud.

A spark occurs. The young man pursues Yossi. It seems endlessly. It is hard not to get tired of Yossi's prolonged funk.

Finally, as predicted, the long period of denial and survivor's guilt breaks. Sex has a curative effect as it does in a majority of films, straight or gay, and we see a big smile and conversion. Convention will out. Romanticism will be redeemed. The Hollywood ending is observed. And, it has to be said, the Hollywood convention of not showing much gay sex at all looks to be the Israeli convention as well. "The straights" seem to get laid a lot more spectacularly than "the gays" which we know is the reverse of real life!

I could have done with a little more grappling with Yossi's demons, myself.

It turns out that the young soldier, quite hot, sees something in Yossi that even we do not except that we saw him in the first film and he is shown here in some photos. He was hot too.

I sort of expected a "year later" coda tacked on when Yossi would be hot again and "married" to the soldier who is just due to get out of the service at that time. But they did not do this.

The film was good enough but kind of boring and I could use, if they were going for romance, if not more hotness, a few more hearts and flowers.

This gets a 3 out of Netflix5. I am glad that I watched it even though it was, partly, out of a sense of obligation.

The rule about sequels is once again redeemed. I pay for my sins. I should have stuck with the first film and let the second one go.

Labels: films, gay films

I knew flip flops weren't good for people.

Labels: health, shoes

I was disappointed not to be able to see the kid have his plea hearing.

In Court for First Time Boston Bombing Suspect Faces Victims

It was pretty anti-climactic although he apparently affected a wise guy image.

There were no pictures. I saw an artist's rendering but those so suck.

I want to see this guy.

I know it is strangely voyeuristic but I want to look into his eyes as they are now. I want to see his haircut (evidently renewed to the old messy kind of afro shown in all his pix). But to no avail.

I had this same thing with Timothy McVey. There were a lot of photos of him on his way to the death chamber. I wanted to see them all.

Not as a kind of enjoyment I think. More that I want to understand.

The mail bomber Ted Kazinzky was an obvious nut. Not hard to fathom. Ugly and crazed looking.

McVey and this guy are amazingly normal looking. Virile. Alive.

What the fuck is going on in there?

We will never, ever know.

There are reams of literature on the sociopathic personality whether it is a fanatic for muslims or whatever. It is the guy in the Texas tower.

A mystery.

Labels: criminal behavior, terrorism

The art is inaccessible. The man is not. At 80 years, he shows plenty of his life experience in his face and in his talk.

My impression of the German documentary

Gerhard Richter Painting (2011)

A very famous high demand big bucks artist. But not to me. This is another world.

Richter is an engaging guy with a great story. He left East Germany in 1961, a "political refugee" and was unable to go back for decades. No permits.

His work, that which we see, is wide ranging from figurative art, even photographs through to the largely abstract works which he is seen doing in this film.

The film maker helps us, with Richter's assistance, see him work and get what he thinks he is up to.

These work periods, quite absorbing, are interspersed with occasional trips to the art business world, exhibits, openings. Nuts.

Then the supreme quiet of the studio.

In this film we watch him work on a series of abstract paintings produced with a large squeegee kind of board. He uses gallon buckets of the classic oil colors. Titanium white. The same ones I got when I dabbled.

There is no mistaking that this is a high, rather "deep" art. Not the same thing. This work evolves. He reflects. He sees into his own mysterious reactions to the extent that he can. Long study and an obviously disciplined work ethic have led him down paths which only he can see in retrospect and not much of that.

He talks about this. How he might have gone down many paths based on certain turning points. A lot is intuitive. Subconscious. But we/I get it.

He is searching for his own self through this work. But he loves the work. The end, after all the sort of fear, doubt and insecurity, ends with a wonderful discovery. A yellow "line" hidden in the undercoats which, up to now, he did not know was there. "Know" consciously, I think.

Bang. It surfaces. He laughs. Explosively. He says "this is so much fun".

I have the idea that his "aha moment", is the one we all talk about and search for in our own lives, is his reason for being.

His path has led to a happy time, the end of the road he has been on. The surprising pay off.

I get it. I have the feeling myself. I say this in all humility but it feels entirely familiar to me now. I am almost his age. A feeling of arrival.

I enjoyed this so much I forgot to feed the dog. Other duties.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5. As much as I enjoyed it, enough is enough. Troweled on paint is troweled on paint. Richter is like an old friend I am glad I met but don't want to go visit anymore. There are lots of those strewn along my own path.

Labels: films

I just finished Matt Mitchams autobiography Twists and Turns .

Young for an auto-b but he has been at the peak of youthful fame and has a great story to tell.

He is the Olympic gold medal diver who got the gold at Beijing.

He is also gay, not the first diver or Olympian by any means but the first open one. NBC could not imagine that he kissed his partner Lachlan after his win. Shock and dismay. But we could imagine it.

So that makes him a gay liberator as well as a fine athlete.

This is a good book for several reasons. Don't know if he had help but if he did he got the right help. It is riveting.

He, like me, is a man in recovery. We didn't know that when he was front page famous. This sets the record straight. So to speak.

He keeps things tight and to the point. He has a lot of fun in his soul. It comes out in the reading.

I had a good time. With him and the book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in gays or sports or even Australians (as I currently am) because it reads close to what I believe his experience is like.

Labels: books, gay heroes, gay sports

We have been waiting for the humidity.

The "monsoon".

And what we wait for we usually get.

The hot and dry desert air gets a bit wet every year when the lows swirl the wrong way and bring in the dread high comfort index (over 60). Also afternoon and evening thunder and lightning.

This years started just about on time a couple of days ago.

It is not as bad as I remember it but I vary in my response to it every year.

My other boys do not like it.

There is one advantage, in a way. The day temps do not go up as high because the sky is more cloudy. Today, almost total.

Down side is that there is no radiation cooling at night. The nights don't cool off either.

No open house when I get up at 245AM.

Did I mention I have changed my wake time to 15 minutes earlier?

Yes, it is a long story but mostly I have a slightly longer commute to my morning meeting three times a week. It is better to just make it a daily standard than to "tell" my subconscious the there are only three early days.

So it is supposed to be sticky until the end of the week. Then back to "normal".

I have seen "best of" and all those lists but these are worse.

Look at this!

What Makes You Put Down a Book

Neat-O.

I do not know whether to feel superior or part of a crowd.

Of the top five "abandoned classics", I can say that I finished Ulysses, Catch-22 with enjoyment. I read the Joyce when I was 18. Precocious I guess. Years later I went back to check and realized that I actually "got it" at the time. I tried Finnegan's Wake and quit. Sorry.

Same with Catch 22.

I read the Rand cover to cover and did not enjoy it but found it sort of boring and, I think, badly written. Rand's ideas never appealed to me. A born liberal, me.

I missed the Hobbits entirely. I got to MIT and found people living in this dream world and was amazed by the zealotry around it but I looked at the people and decided to pass. I did go see the movie and liked the first half more or less and then found the rest of it including that awful little gremlin thing boring and terribly old hat. Maybe because, by that time, so many people had copied Tolkien's ideas and methods.

Moby Dick? I tried. God knows I tried. Over and over. Finally, about five years ago I put it in the toilet and started out again. I had even read Melville's earlier works and had enjoyed them. Not the whale. Not even the obviously gay heroes. Nothing.

As for the rest of the list, the current unreadables or meretricious, I am pretty much up there with the list.

I thought Eat Pray Love a hot steaming pile of feel good horseshit. I didn't even believe it. Not for a minute. Foolishly I tried the movie in case maybe I missed something. It was a bit better, an unusual thing, actually. My policy is not to see the film of the book or vv but since I really didn't read the book, maybe, maybe I would like the film. Sort of but the horsey odor sort of stuck to it.

I am not even tempted to read the "Grey" books. I hated the first Larrson book, hackey and full of obvious 'mistakes' and dead ends. A dubious heroine. Wicked is OK. I did not see the show or know anything much about it and read the book because I knew I would never see it.

The Rowling, I am just not interested in the precis I saw. I did like Harry Potter but our grandson was reading it at the time. More fun that, I suspect.

My policy on finishing is pretty straight forward. I stay until I cannot stand it any more. I have stayed with books I threw across the room and became seduced shortly after the tantrum.

I read reviews pretty carefully and dismiss some books out of hand entirely. I won't go over the list as it is a bit sexist and racist.

I am now on Kindle and they will let you read the first chapter. I think you can do this on line at Amazon now but I do not and have not done that.

I choose books on a hunch and pay attention when one is recommended by someone I like. The internet is a help on this.

I follow some authors religiously and will buy every single one of their books. If I like someones book I will probably read all of them from the juvenilia right up to the current times or the end if it is an "old author".

I took American fiction in college and specialized in it. I have read every word of Faulkner and enjoyed every word until I did not. Now, I can't go back. This is a common thread also. An author or a book fits into my age and time and disposition then. Not now.

I would like to know a dedicated reader's "batting average" on picks. Mine is at least 750. Very high, I think.

Some people I know have a pile of unfinished books they "intend" to read or finish some day.

I could not do that. When I am slowed or stopped, I stop.

I didn't spend much time with the "reasons" people would quit.

I do not require myself to have a reason.

Labels: books, reading

Women get to tell their own story.

Today's NYTimes Critics' Pick film was the Egyptian

Scherezade: Tell Me a Story

Women, in Egypt, tell their own tales on a television talk show designed ostensibly as a "personal story" show designed to avoid politics and to be targeted to women.

The politics become unavoidable as each woman tells her story of oppression.

While the film is feminist in its point of view there are no axes being ground.

It is pretty intense and turns out to be as hot politically as it could be. This causes some trouble for the host who, eventually, gets to tell her story of being suppressed personally.

It is certainly germane to the "Egypt situation" under Mubaryk who we see over someone's shoulder on the television.

Now it is all up in the air.

But the film was made before all that.

For an "issue picture" I liked it and it had a lot of suspense in each of the four stories being told. Really an anthology film with the same point of view.

A window in another world which seems westernized but isn't really.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5 as some of the setup seems a bit forced, nevertheless gets going once the stories start.

Labels: films

Obvious that they softened us up with all the characters and wolf technicalities in the first six episodes.

In today's fifth episode of Teen Wolf all hell broke loose for the full 40 minutes then the relationships were shaken badly in the sixth.

Obvious ploy to get us hooked and then let us have it.

The idea of the loooong ride up the first "hill" on a roller coaster.

It is apparent that a lot of thought and care has gone into this series. Everything is first rate. Way over any expectations I would have about television. But maybe I have been gone "too long".

There are two aspects that came through to me today. I had noticed the musical score in the early episodes but, today, it was crucial in the action sequences. It is a full orchestra. The composition is first rate. Dino Meneghin. This interview reminds us that this series is on MTV so the music would be, at least, an important consideration.

The other aspect from today's viewing. It occurred to me that two episodes of this series (about 85 minutes without commercials) is the same work for the cast and director (and others, obviously) as a 90 minute feature with about the same level of quality.

Today is the first time we have seen the full body shot of the alpha-wolf who is the cause of all this mayhem and angst.

He is the one male in the "cast" who is totally not attractive. We think he is someone who passes as human in the other parts of the story but we do not really have the info on that.

We also know that there are going to be more conversions to werewolf (half human) through bites. Maybe some others will show up from birth.

The are not paying a couple of these great young actors to star just to be posturing la crosse players (an interesting choice of sport, it is taken from an ancient Native American game). The posturing is OK with me of course but soon there will be more than one teen wolf. I am sure of it.

Listen. The opening score. Other segments follow.

Labels: films, television

Today and tomorrow's movie will be more, four, episodes of Teen Wolf, Season One.

It is good.

I am enjoying it.

Very well produced and looks like they spent a lot of money. Crowd scenes, special effects. Very good.

Not a cliché in the bunch but references? Genré niches? Yes. Most often with a tongue in cheek. But still scary.

Tyler Posey. Him and him. Just bit but showing some wolf stuff.

Labels: films, television

Zombies are not really dead, dead but have possibilities.

Today's film was the wonderful small/big film by Jonathan Levine

Warm Bodies (2013)

I really enjoyed this movie.

It is very clever and never too clever for its own good.

The young stars, Nicholas Hoult (knock dead gorgeous), Teresa Palmer and even the older one, Rob Corddry funny. Dave Franco and Analeigh Tipton fill out the cast.

The story is quite unique, a blend of West Side Story, them and us, and Night of the Living Dead.

There is a tongue in cheek feel but for the most part they play this totally straight and the emotional bonds feel very strong.

Makeup is perfect. It has to be there. But it is done in a way that plays into the central idea that these people are dead but not all the way so and they can come back with love and affection.

Some of it is funny, some is scary. I imagine it on a big screen as quite a bit adrenaline driven.

Oh. John Malkovich is the girl's Dad bent on destroying the nearly dead.

The "making of" extras are great and less self promoting than most, a lot of emphasis on technical detail. The "how to's". I don't normally go for too much of this but it is great postfilm fun.

I would like to see this again some day so I am giving it a highly surprising 5 out of Netflix5. Surprising as I did not expect to enjoy it so much.

Labels: films

Today is the 16th anniversary of our arrival in Palm Springs.

1997.

We drove cross country from Boston to Niagara to Indiana to somewhere in South Dakota. Wyoming.

We had planned to stop at the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone but had called the moving company and found they were ahead of schedule.

Not 070997 (see the numerology? It looks better as 7-9-97 but I don't write my dates that way) but 070797. Oh Oh.

Skipped Yellowstone dropped down to Utah, Ogden and then Salt Lake, on to Las Vegas and then Palm Springs. Home.

The trip was great. The first and last X=country ride. Once was great, not twice.

We had the new Cherokee and did a stop over at various places, taking time to see stuff that people don't normally look at as well as the old standards.

Niagara Falls. Great. Awesome.

Indiana to see friends, the nearly last stay in someone else's home. Not forever, actually. We tried it one more time on our first trip back east. Sucked.

I just can't do that. I lived off motels all my life so that is not a problem but I can't deal with home-i-ness that is not mine.

On to the Plains. No cities, the plan was to hit half Inter-State and go off the track, no blue roads, but not the super highway. 300-500 miles a day with stops for sights.

We saw sights. Looked and looked. Flat. Flat. Flat. Then not.

We stopped at an old fashioned amusement park, visited a prairie dog city, saw the Badlands, stopped at Wall's Drugstore and stayed overnight in a national park in that required group seating for meals. Awful experience.

The next morning we drove out and went through a tunnel where a mountain goat family were spending the night. They let us through.

And so on.

If I turn on the slide player in my head, scene after scene rolls through.

The foothills before the Rockies.

I don't mean to flash it by you so quickly but it is like anyone else's slides. A fast shuffle, in and out.

When we got here it was hot of course. We had kind of planned it that way. Start with the heat and then it is all down hill.

We didn't go back east for over a year.

These were two rules that we made for ourselves for a variety of reasons, one being that we wanted to get the desert thermostat hooked up, but the other was to insure that we got clearly that we were here.

It is one of the best moves I have ever made. Which is not saying much as I have not moved that often, unlike my husband who has many towns and houses in his life's wake.

I lived in two houses on the same street as a kid.

Then MIT. Three different rooms, same floor in one dorm then another. And so on.

Then the early career stuff in Germantown outside Philadelphia, up to Lower Bucks County the first house I sort of owned. Then four houses in Plymouth MA and then three places in Boston. But none of these involved big travel. Coming here was big big travel.

When you get to my age one realizes that there are "once in a lifetime" experiences even if I didn't plan it that way.

The great western move was one of those. We took the time and the trouble to see as much as possible. Did I mention both sides of the Grand Canyon, North and South?

Oh beautiful for spacious skies for amber waves of grain.

I had seen Europe, Japan, the usual winter resort places. But the US of A? Not until then.

Indelible.

Inspiring.

Wonderful.

The American West. Huge. Unending. Forever. A life spent in the cramped Northeast, a great place and a great time, cannot prepare for the going and arriving WEST.

Labels: California, travel

Difficult and worth it.

Speaking out of experience

Labels: gay parents

To say that Mike Leigh writes and directs a film is a bit upside down.

His approach is collaborative.

Get the actors together and "workshop" it. The idea or the core of a subject.

This is not a particularly new idea today or even in 1990 but Leigh has mastered it and, as a result, has produced his films slowly and against the stream.

His first real success, the film that validates his approach is/was

Life is Sweet (1990)

starring his "co-writers" Jim Broadbent, Alison Steadman, Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks, Claire Skinner, Timothy Spall, Stephen Rea and David Thewlis.

It is about a family. It goes from happy and funny to deeper and sad. It shows a lower middle class British family getting by. This class thing is particularly British in that every one of them has to battle against who they are "told" they are to be who they really are. So it is about identity.

It is about how, despite our best intentions, kids and parents turn out differently than we expect. Friends fail us. Sometimes they rally in our defense.

There is a lot going on here.

There are twins. They are dead opposites. The truth is finally told. The conclusions are left up in the air.

It is very human.

The whole thing sneaks up on us and eventually, for me, grabs us by the ass and will not let go.

Watch the mum working in day-care and see her with other people's kids. See the reality of her own poor sad twin who is clueless about life. The other who thrives. The husband who is a dreamer. And so on.

In short, get to know them and know their truths. After all, they say, the truth will out.

It does here.

There is a restaurant, just opening, called Regret Rien. Regret Nothing. There is a lot of that in every person in the film.

It is funny that there is a LOT in here about food.

This DVD is a Criterion restoration. Fun to watch. Hard to digest at times.

Once is enough for me. I feel to much like an observer outside the tank watching fish swim around. But I get it.

A 3 out of Netflix5. I love Jim Broadbent. Here are Jane Horrocks and David Thewlis. A confrontation. Some truth.

Labels: films