Friday, November 15, 2013
Land and sea
Piracy is the theme of today's movie. Not in the Burt Lancaster swords and sash sense but in the modern Somali piracy of a freighter. A Highjacking (2012) beats the arrival of the Tom Hanks highjacking film which will be more boring just because Hanks is in it. This one is Danish and shows the situation, unbelievably long weeks and months as it evolves on sea with the sailors and on land with the shipping company. The tension in both places is extraordinary. The Somali's are skilled at playing on the psychology of the live hostages and the shipping executive, the ship and the cargo are secondary. Fear is used. Impatience. Emotionality. They are quite skillful in the cat and mouse game. The pirates more than the suits in that the suits need a consultant and their cold blood is easily roiled when they lose the negotiation upper hand. The pirates are fucking crazy but crazy like a fox. The acting is great. The filming, almost documentary style is deeply involving. They filmed in the offices of a shipping company and on an actual ship. An easy 4 out of Netflix5. I would gladly watch it again. It does no harm, I am sure, to know how it turns out. It is just plain terrifying.
I sent off my 50 word bio today for the HOA board election. Then, when I got home from the gym, I typed out a longer one page bio with my picture. It flowed. So, I am ready for it. I am not sure of the process exactly. I think that people vote by secret ballot and the ballots are opened at a formal meeting of the entire association. They have missed the deadline for nominations for the December meeting. One consequence already. I will be going to observe the Board meeting on November 14 and also the non-election meeting of the entire association mid December. One demerit for me is that I have never attended one of these. It might be good to show up and be seen and to see what happens. I have some fear of not winning. But I have been in elections before in my past life. Won a few and lost one. And those were a lot bigger than this. An entire town and town meeting. So. Quiet now. The next step will be to get the addresses of the people and mail out the one pagers in time for the voting.
