This has been my roadsong these last few days, inspired by the landscape (snatches of which I gave you below) and my own mood:
lyrics:
This old man I've talked about
Broke his own heart, poured it in the ground.
Big red tree grew up and out,
Throw up its leaves, spins round and round..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
This little squirrel I used to be
Slammed her bike down the stairs.
They put silver where her teeth had been:
Baby silvertooth, she grins and grins..
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me
And be there when I feed the tree.
This old man I used to be
Spins around, around, around a tree..
Silver baby, come to me,
I'll only hurt you in my dreams..
I know all this and
I know all this and
I know all this and more..
So take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
Take your hat off when you're talking to me,
And be there when I feed the tree.
---
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Pictures of the Day: Jupiter to Naughty Laudy
I vowed to post a daily image from my peregrinations. Only a few days ago now, and I have already failed. I'm not taking many images, and a whole set that I thought I had taken I took without a memory card in the camera.. A couple of which were pretty cool. Just how I roll.
I recommit myself to that pledge, and will do better.
Here are a few random images from the last few days:
First, to the birdwatchers among you, please tell me what this is:
The picture I posted last week of the baby armadillos in the road that I called ardvaarks was jesting, I knew what they were. This, I know is a hawk. Or buzzard. A bird of prey, anyway. I saw it at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
While I was there, I was fascinated by all the birds. I've always liked birds, as well as animals generally. But I've never been so fascinated before. I stayed there for hours watching them.
After I left I realized: I am now officially old. Next thing you know I'll be wearing adult diapers and a fedora, playing canasta poolside for quarters.
There are worse fates.
This one's for Cousin Mikey. Who I'm sure isn't reading the blog, but if he were would be dang jealous of my just getting naughty without him now in Laudy..
---
I recommit myself to that pledge, and will do better.
Here are a few random images from the last few days:
First, to the birdwatchers among you, please tell me what this is:
The picture I posted last week of the baby armadillos in the road that I called ardvaarks was jesting, I knew what they were. This, I know is a hawk. Or buzzard. A bird of prey, anyway. I saw it at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.
While I was there, I was fascinated by all the birds. I've always liked birds, as well as animals generally. But I've never been so fascinated before. I stayed there for hours watching them.
After I left I realized: I am now officially old. Next thing you know I'll be wearing adult diapers and a fedora, playing canasta poolside for quarters.
There are worse fates.
This one's for Cousin Mikey. Who I'm sure isn't reading the blog, but if he were would be dang jealous of my just getting naughty without him now in Laudy..
---
Monday, June 27, 2011
Film Review: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
I enjoyed this. 4/5*'s, B+ - 96% on the Tomato Meter, 76% audience approval.
This is a documentary by Werner Herzog, who received a unique permission from the French Ministry of Culture (this is their relevant site) to film in the Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche Valley near the Rhone in southern France.
They are dated to 40 to 30,000 years old. This is much older than the 20,000-year-old images at Lascaux, France or the 17,000-year-old ones at Altamira, Spain. This means that they are the oldest known symbolic representations created by a human being in the world. The oldest art, perhaps (indeed almost certainly) the oldest human "religious" expression (since the scientists studying it believe they were perhaps created as a part of a "shamanistic" type ritual) in the world.
As art they are absolutely stunning, to equal anything done by the likes of Matisse or the best of Picasso. Very, very beautiful. Most of the images are of animals, but one is (as Herzog puts it in the film) of a woman's sex, basically a depiction of a kneeling woman's rear that flows seamlessly into the head of a bison like animal. The oldest picture of a human being.
Herzog worked under extreme restrictions, only being allowed into the cave twice, because previous experience at sites like Lascaux have shown that even small changes in the atmosphere of such a cave can destroy the images by introducing mold and other contaminants. The cave is also dangerous to remain in for long due to high levels of carbon dioxide and radon that can sicken and kill the unwary.
The entire experience of watching this film is meditative. Nearly everything he shoots and most of the commentary is fascinating. The landscape and cave are in one of my favorite places in the world, and are stunningly beautiful.
This is the Pont d'Arc, the cave is located nearby:
Pretty stunning landscape, really. Thirty thousand years ago it was surrounded by glaciers during one of the recent glaciations that have covered Europe and North America. If you've (say) read Clan of the Cave Bear (one of my Middle School reads, back then I soaked up historical fiction, and stayed up all night one night to finish that book when I was in 8th Grade) or seen a paleolithic Venus, you know will have an idea of what the culture that created these images is all about:
He shot the film in 3-D, and I must say that this is the first 3-D film I've seen where it actually makes sense and adds something to the movie. The walls of the cave, and the cavern itself leaps at you a bit, giving a real sense of how the drawings meld with and use the topography of the wall to convey a sense of motion and depth.
Herzog is the same documentarian who made the film about that idiot Timothy Treadwell, "The Grizzly Man," who got himself and his girlfriend eaten by a grizzly in Alaska in 2003, and the bear who ate them shot by Fish & Wildlife. Treadwell was a total asshole, but Herzog's film about him is fascinating.
So this is the second project I've seen by Herzog who has had a very long career, most of which I've managed to miss despite my love for documentaries. I saw him interviewed by Stephen Colbert, where Stephen strains to be funny (I love his show, but the interview is the least interesting part of the show, while the reverse is true I think of John Stewart.. ) but does get some interesting reactions from Herzog.
I do have to say that Stephen does hit on what seems to me one of the central issues in thinking about things like this: This story is about origins, about consciousness and self-awareness, which means this story has profound religious implications.
"How can the drawings be 32-40,000 years old when the earth was created only 6,000 years ago?" That's a question that strikes to the heart of what 40% of Americans apparently believe, that the universe is only 4 to 6,000 years old, following the calculations of the likes of Bishop Usher and other "fundamentalists" who've done the math for us on the genealogies in the Pentateuch and a timeline of the rest of the Bible.
The radio carbon dating they've done on the drawings indicates that the drawings were created over a span of thousands of years - 40 to 32,000 years ago - in a cave that was never inhabited by humans, only used as an apparent ceremonial site. There is what Herzog and the anthropologists working at the site take to an altar in the cave, where they surmise some sort of ritual or ceremony was performed. The cave was inhabited by extinct cave bears, who left thousands of bones and claw marks all over the cave. At some point over 15,000 years ago the cave was sealed by a great landslide, and then only discovered in 1994 by the explorer who gives the cave its name.
Stephen asks Herzog "Are you making any of this stuff up?" driving at his apparent tendency to embellish his stories. But that question can be leveled at the entire phenomena. All sacred narratives tend to run up against the scientific record in ways that from a positivistic perspective seem to undermine them.
The question of how this cave relates to the narrative in Genesis seems to me to be a valid one. But it's also finally an unanswerable one.
In my last review took a couple potshots at people who seek to reconcile that narrative (or any other sacred mythology) to the latest scientific consensus in a "literal" way. As I say, I think that's vulgar and stupid.
As I said there, I also think that people who think that science has "disproven the Bible" and the existence of God are even bigger idiots.
The debate between the two sides is tiresome and mindless.
I say that the narrative and the physical environment do not need to be reconciled according to our current knowledge, because as one scientist in the film says, we know almost nothing.
The more I live, the more it seems to me that humility and wonder are crucial to not being a jackass.
Which, incidentally is one of the things I accuse myself of being. I have been too often a victim of cognitive dissonance born of my own pride and arrogance, and am still tempted frequently to pass that door..
Then alternately been tempted to rain down judgements and preach, and call people names. Which I think is what I just did.. Again. Ach.
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.
I've decided that needs to radically change. So, when at the end of the film Herzog makes an extraneous editorial comment about the caves by taking us to a tropical terrarium fed by the waste water from one of France's many nuclear power plants near the cave - the water expelled from a cooling tower that controls the heat of a reactor is very hot, and not radioactive - by showing us a pair of albino crocodiles kept there, and opining that we are ultimately no better than they, and that if they saw the drawings they would be unperturbed, implying that the universe entire is just as unknowing and so ultimately meaningless..
I just shook my head and pitied him. He shoots this gorgeous film, full of astonishing things, and still can't help himself from making a statement of chic nihilism to put it all in perspective for us.
What can you say? You look at something so beautiful, and still doubt the transcendence of the human soul?
Poor fellow.
---
This is a documentary by Werner Herzog, who received a unique permission from the French Ministry of Culture (this is their relevant site) to film in the Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche Valley near the Rhone in southern France.
They are dated to 40 to 30,000 years old. This is much older than the 20,000-year-old images at Lascaux, France or the 17,000-year-old ones at Altamira, Spain. This means that they are the oldest known symbolic representations created by a human being in the world. The oldest art, perhaps (indeed almost certainly) the oldest human "religious" expression (since the scientists studying it believe they were perhaps created as a part of a "shamanistic" type ritual) in the world.
As art they are absolutely stunning, to equal anything done by the likes of Matisse or the best of Picasso. Very, very beautiful. Most of the images are of animals, but one is (as Herzog puts it in the film) of a woman's sex, basically a depiction of a kneeling woman's rear that flows seamlessly into the head of a bison like animal. The oldest picture of a human being.
Herzog worked under extreme restrictions, only being allowed into the cave twice, because previous experience at sites like Lascaux have shown that even small changes in the atmosphere of such a cave can destroy the images by introducing mold and other contaminants. The cave is also dangerous to remain in for long due to high levels of carbon dioxide and radon that can sicken and kill the unwary.
The entire experience of watching this film is meditative. Nearly everything he shoots and most of the commentary is fascinating. The landscape and cave are in one of my favorite places in the world, and are stunningly beautiful.
This is the Pont d'Arc, the cave is located nearby:
Pretty stunning landscape, really. Thirty thousand years ago it was surrounded by glaciers during one of the recent glaciations that have covered Europe and North America. If you've (say) read Clan of the Cave Bear (one of my Middle School reads, back then I soaked up historical fiction, and stayed up all night one night to finish that book when I was in 8th Grade) or seen a paleolithic Venus, you know will have an idea of what the culture that created these images is all about:
He shot the film in 3-D, and I must say that this is the first 3-D film I've seen where it actually makes sense and adds something to the movie. The walls of the cave, and the cavern itself leaps at you a bit, giving a real sense of how the drawings meld with and use the topography of the wall to convey a sense of motion and depth.
Herzog is the same documentarian who made the film about that idiot Timothy Treadwell, "The Grizzly Man," who got himself and his girlfriend eaten by a grizzly in Alaska in 2003, and the bear who ate them shot by Fish & Wildlife. Treadwell was a total asshole, but Herzog's film about him is fascinating.
So this is the second project I've seen by Herzog who has had a very long career, most of which I've managed to miss despite my love for documentaries. I saw him interviewed by Stephen Colbert, where Stephen strains to be funny (I love his show, but the interview is the least interesting part of the show, while the reverse is true I think of John Stewart.. ) but does get some interesting reactions from Herzog.
I do have to say that Stephen does hit on what seems to me one of the central issues in thinking about things like this: This story is about origins, about consciousness and self-awareness, which means this story has profound religious implications.
"How can the drawings be 32-40,000 years old when the earth was created only 6,000 years ago?" That's a question that strikes to the heart of what 40% of Americans apparently believe, that the universe is only 4 to 6,000 years old, following the calculations of the likes of Bishop Usher and other "fundamentalists" who've done the math for us on the genealogies in the Pentateuch and a timeline of the rest of the Bible.
The radio carbon dating they've done on the drawings indicates that the drawings were created over a span of thousands of years - 40 to 32,000 years ago - in a cave that was never inhabited by humans, only used as an apparent ceremonial site. There is what Herzog and the anthropologists working at the site take to an altar in the cave, where they surmise some sort of ritual or ceremony was performed. The cave was inhabited by extinct cave bears, who left thousands of bones and claw marks all over the cave. At some point over 15,000 years ago the cave was sealed by a great landslide, and then only discovered in 1994 by the explorer who gives the cave its name.
Stephen asks Herzog "Are you making any of this stuff up?" driving at his apparent tendency to embellish his stories. But that question can be leveled at the entire phenomena. All sacred narratives tend to run up against the scientific record in ways that from a positivistic perspective seem to undermine them.
The question of how this cave relates to the narrative in Genesis seems to me to be a valid one. But it's also finally an unanswerable one.
In my last review took a couple potshots at people who seek to reconcile that narrative (or any other sacred mythology) to the latest scientific consensus in a "literal" way. As I say, I think that's vulgar and stupid.
As I said there, I also think that people who think that science has "disproven the Bible" and the existence of God are even bigger idiots.
The debate between the two sides is tiresome and mindless.
I say that the narrative and the physical environment do not need to be reconciled according to our current knowledge, because as one scientist in the film says, we know almost nothing.
The more I live, the more it seems to me that humility and wonder are crucial to not being a jackass.
Which, incidentally is one of the things I accuse myself of being. I have been too often a victim of cognitive dissonance born of my own pride and arrogance, and am still tempted frequently to pass that door..
Then alternately been tempted to rain down judgements and preach, and call people names. Which I think is what I just did.. Again. Ach.
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν.
I've decided that needs to radically change. So, when at the end of the film Herzog makes an extraneous editorial comment about the caves by taking us to a tropical terrarium fed by the waste water from one of France's many nuclear power plants near the cave - the water expelled from a cooling tower that controls the heat of a reactor is very hot, and not radioactive - by showing us a pair of albino crocodiles kept there, and opining that we are ultimately no better than they, and that if they saw the drawings they would be unperturbed, implying that the universe entire is just as unknowing and so ultimately meaningless..
I just shook my head and pitied him. He shoots this gorgeous film, full of astonishing things, and still can't help himself from making a statement of chic nihilism to put it all in perspective for us.
What can you say? You look at something so beautiful, and still doubt the transcendence of the human soul?
Poor fellow.
---
Comment on my Review of Tree of Life
It occurred to me today that the soundtrack of Tree of Life has a lot of Catholic liturgical music in it. All in Latin of course, and sung by an excellent choir.
For example, during what I understood to be the "resurrection" was accompanied by the Agnus Dei, which of course is from the Eucharistic canon at the mass: "Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi, miserere nobis.." Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
I also should point out - another thing that occurred to me today - that the "Tree of Life" is also taken in Catholic and Orthodox (and I suppose other Christian traditions) as referring to the Cross. You'll see it for example on diptychs or that lay out the stories of the Hebrew Bible in contrast to their consummation in the Gospel. So the the Cross is the Tree of Life and a counterpoint to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: The first is the instrument salvation and redemption, the second that of freedom and the Fall.
I can't steal this image because it is protected, but it is a mosaic that is an excellent example of what I'm referring to.
I think I'm going to have to watch the film again when it comes out on DVD to parse all this.
---
For example, during what I understood to be the "resurrection" was accompanied by the Agnus Dei, which of course is from the Eucharistic canon at the mass: "Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi, miserere nobis.." Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
I also should point out - another thing that occurred to me today - that the "Tree of Life" is also taken in Catholic and Orthodox (and I suppose other Christian traditions) as referring to the Cross. You'll see it for example on diptychs or that lay out the stories of the Hebrew Bible in contrast to their consummation in the Gospel. So the the Cross is the Tree of Life and a counterpoint to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: The first is the instrument salvation and redemption, the second that of freedom and the Fall.
I can't steal this image because it is protected, but it is a mosaic that is an excellent example of what I'm referring to.
I think I'm going to have to watch the film again when it comes out on DVD to parse all this.
---
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Film Review: Tree of Life
I liked this quite a lot. 4/5 *'s, A. Tomato meter 86%, audience only 66%.
(This is not the trailer, which they won't let me imbed on YouTube. This link takes you to the official trailer: Check out this great MSN video: 'The Tree of Life' Trailer )
I was initially puzzled why this film isn't being shown in more theaters, seeing as Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are in it, and it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.. Now that I've seen it, I understand. This film has only the slightest narrative, being a diaphanous stream of images depicting the life of a family living in Waco, Texas in the 50's, cast against a cosmic backdrop. Many people will not enjoy this at all. Think 2001 Space Odessy or Tarkovsky - if you know who he is, and like him, see this film. Otherwise, you may want to stay away.
The minimal story is focused on the eldest son, who we learn in the very first scenes will die when he is 19. The film then cuts to his birth, and begins to show us the dynamic of his family - Pitt plays his father, a man driven to succeed according to the cultural mores of 1950's corporate/upper class America, who clearly loves his sons, but treats them with a sternness and discipline that borders on pathological. His wife, played by Jessica Chastain (who is stunning here) is a much more gentle and non-judgmental personality.
The devastation they both experience at the death of their son is cast against this dynamic, but it is never explained how the son dies - if he commits suicide, if his death is any way influenced by his relationship with his father.
Then, we flash forward to one of the other two younger brothers in the family (it wasn't clear to me which) as an adult working as an architect in a skyscraper in some American city, somewhere like Dallas or Kansas City, played by Sean Penn. He's obviously still wracked by these events years later. Apparently the film is meant to be at least in part a mediation on life from this character's point of view.
Then, we shift into a long series of images beginning with the dawn of time, the Big Bang, the rise of life, terrestrial life, so forth, culminating in images that seem to suggest the end of the universe in fire and darkness.
The film then jumps back to tell the story of perhaps one year in the life of the family, where the relationship of the eldest son with his father is depicted. He is obviously haunted by his father's expectations and feelings of resentment and inadequacy. These drive him to commit some anti- social acts like launching a frog hundreds of feet in the air tied to a backyard rocket, stealing lingerie from a neighbor's house, and some other small acts of cruelty and disobedience that are clearly attempts on his part to react to the pressure of his father's expectations and the growing realization that he is very much like his father in both his strengths and weaknesses. All of this is cut with other impressions of a beautiful family life in an idealized 1950's setting, only with the occasional acts of cruelty or selfishness on the part of the son or his father to mar the idyll.
The finale of the movie (which comes after what seems to be a very long time, which I didn't mind apart from the fact that I saw the film at the Enzain dinner theater and had ordered three pints during the film, a choice which came back to haunt me in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, but not enough to actually make a run to the restroom.. ) is an apparent resurrection of sorts, an afterlife in which Sean Penn's character is seen walking along a long beautiful beach with all his family, and a large crowd of strangers.
That's basically the story. Very highbrow, high concept, but not particularly doctrinaire. The director, Terrence Malick, evidently poured himself into this film, and it shows. He's the same guy who directed A Thin Red Line, another great film shot with a very similar visual style, but with more narrative structure, and is a trained philosopher - ABD at Oxford on a thesis dealing with "the concept of world" in Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.. He had a divergence of opinion with his tutor, it seems.
Malick was raised Assyrian Catholic (that is to say Iraqi, or Chaldean Catholic) in Waco, himself, and that is also evident in the film. He also then went to a high class Episcopalian Prep School in Austin.
This film is obviously fruit of all of that study, and all of those philosophical and religious influences, and so is just as pretentious and interesting, as well as alternately staunch and new agey as you'd expect.
The family is Catholic and are often depicted at mass. Their priest is shown at one point giving a homily on the Book of Job in which he hammers home the futility of all worldly things, and the necessity of grace and the salvation of God which is beyond all human understanding: "his thoughts are infinitely above ours.."
The film also opens with a verse from one of my very favorite chapters in the entire Bible, also in Job: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" This is from Chapter 38 where God first takes the stage after Job has been sitting on his dung heap being heckled by his friends who have all sorts of opinions as to why Job has fallen on such hard times for the first 37 chapters.
The first 37 chapters are like much Christian discourse in other words: "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." They babble, then leave. It's like one long modern evangelical service, a whole lot of bullshit and preaching, only without any rock tunes. I could never be a low church protestant, getting preached and sung at all the time like that. I'm so glad we have liturgy and generally short homilies..
Anyhow, it's when Job is alone that God shows up and puts a pile driver through things. Job had been a bit upset that all these horrible things had befallen him, and was annoyed at God. But he never took up his so called friends' challenge to simply curse God and die. He kept on keeping on, cranky but faithful to the end, enthroned on his pile of shit.
Malick quotes the perfect line for every jackass who thinks they understand what the Book of Genesis "really" means in "historical" or "scientific" terms.
Where you there? Who are you to lecture me about what I did? You know nothing.
That no mere man may boast before He Who Lives and Reigns.
Malick leaves out - and this is telling, I think - the lines just before this, where God says to Job "Stand up. Gird your loins like a man. I will examine and I will judge you."
Judge. You.
This movie treats creation with such poetic power, and then casts the lives of this particular family against that cosmic backdrop in a way that is neither condescending or gimmicky. The grandeur of the human being, the human person, of our collective consciousness and our love, is as astounding as everything else in time and space - in fact, it is apparently the only thing that gives any of the other astonishing things that are any meaning. Only we contemplate, only we worship. Malick's film is one long testament to that truth.
But despite the proto- Christian themes in the film, and the repeated prayers in which every primary character prays and seeks the intercession of other characters ("I" love "you") in religious language, even addressing God as a person ("I give my son to you") the full blown presence of that transcendent Other is not felt. The film dances around this felt near absence gently, which is why it seems to verge on a sort of "new age" vibe..
The mother (Jessica Chastain's character) also makes a powerful statement at the beginning of the film that opposes grace to nature ("there is the way of grace and the way of nature") where grace is described as being selfless, liberating and free, while nature is described as grasping, controlling and selfish. The mother seems to be meant to be taking the way of grace, while the father and his oldest son follow the way of nature.
While I get the point, and somewhat credit it, I thought to myself that this is not technically true. I think nature is a manifestation of grace, and departing from grace disfigures, and is un-natural. The fall is the deprivation of grace in nature, that is evil, sin and death. Nature itself is good, being created by God (who is the only "super" natural being, even spirits and angels are natural, whether fallen or not, on this point I refer you to Aquinas) and in the Catholic economy of grace redeemed by the Church which is Christ's sacramental action, the energies of God that take on "material" expressions.
That's in a way a quibble (and note that I typed that off the cuff, so my way off expressing it may not be as precise or correct as it should be) but it's an important one.
I was left wondering about Malick's deeper agenda, whether he was thinking in terms of the Kabbalic or ancient Egyptian "Tree of Life" or other variations of that idea, and how much those ideas may have impacted his film.
I incidentally bought a beautiful papyrus of this depiction of the Egyptian mythological Tree of Life when I was living in Cairo, which I gave to Rich & JD. They've framed it beautifully, and it looks fantastic:
I really like it, and may need to go back to Cairo to pick up a few more.
The thing about this movie though is that while this is definitely affirming of the immense beauty and dignity of the individual human person, it sort of goes vague on the ultimate source of that personhood.
More unitarian than trinitarian in the final analysis, it seems to me. Not that that is a bad thing. I'm merely observing for the record.
Final word: see this film if it sounds at all interesting to you.
Just stay away from that third pint. It'll mess you up.
[Footnote: I just watched the video about the casting of the film that I post at the head of the review.. I apparently misunderstood what happened entirely, in that I thought the eldest son was the one who died, but apparently it was one of the younger ones. Sean Penn depicts the eldest son as a middle aged man.. i leave my review as is, because thaat confusion is a testament to the discursive, non- linear style of the film. I normally don't get confused by movies, but this one was unusually indeterminate. ]
---
(This is not the trailer, which they won't let me imbed on YouTube. This link takes you to the official trailer: Check out this great MSN video: 'The Tree of Life' Trailer )
I was initially puzzled why this film isn't being shown in more theaters, seeing as Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are in it, and it has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.. Now that I've seen it, I understand. This film has only the slightest narrative, being a diaphanous stream of images depicting the life of a family living in Waco, Texas in the 50's, cast against a cosmic backdrop. Many people will not enjoy this at all. Think 2001 Space Odessy or Tarkovsky - if you know who he is, and like him, see this film. Otherwise, you may want to stay away.
The minimal story is focused on the eldest son, who we learn in the very first scenes will die when he is 19. The film then cuts to his birth, and begins to show us the dynamic of his family - Pitt plays his father, a man driven to succeed according to the cultural mores of 1950's corporate/upper class America, who clearly loves his sons, but treats them with a sternness and discipline that borders on pathological. His wife, played by Jessica Chastain (who is stunning here) is a much more gentle and non-judgmental personality.
The devastation they both experience at the death of their son is cast against this dynamic, but it is never explained how the son dies - if he commits suicide, if his death is any way influenced by his relationship with his father.
Then, we flash forward to one of the other two younger brothers in the family (it wasn't clear to me which) as an adult working as an architect in a skyscraper in some American city, somewhere like Dallas or Kansas City, played by Sean Penn. He's obviously still wracked by these events years later. Apparently the film is meant to be at least in part a mediation on life from this character's point of view.
Then, we shift into a long series of images beginning with the dawn of time, the Big Bang, the rise of life, terrestrial life, so forth, culminating in images that seem to suggest the end of the universe in fire and darkness.
The film then jumps back to tell the story of perhaps one year in the life of the family, where the relationship of the eldest son with his father is depicted. He is obviously haunted by his father's expectations and feelings of resentment and inadequacy. These drive him to commit some anti- social acts like launching a frog hundreds of feet in the air tied to a backyard rocket, stealing lingerie from a neighbor's house, and some other small acts of cruelty and disobedience that are clearly attempts on his part to react to the pressure of his father's expectations and the growing realization that he is very much like his father in both his strengths and weaknesses. All of this is cut with other impressions of a beautiful family life in an idealized 1950's setting, only with the occasional acts of cruelty or selfishness on the part of the son or his father to mar the idyll.
The finale of the movie (which comes after what seems to be a very long time, which I didn't mind apart from the fact that I saw the film at the Enzain dinner theater and had ordered three pints during the film, a choice which came back to haunt me in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, but not enough to actually make a run to the restroom.. ) is an apparent resurrection of sorts, an afterlife in which Sean Penn's character is seen walking along a long beautiful beach with all his family, and a large crowd of strangers.
That's basically the story. Very highbrow, high concept, but not particularly doctrinaire. The director, Terrence Malick, evidently poured himself into this film, and it shows. He's the same guy who directed A Thin Red Line, another great film shot with a very similar visual style, but with more narrative structure, and is a trained philosopher - ABD at Oxford on a thesis dealing with "the concept of world" in Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.. He had a divergence of opinion with his tutor, it seems.
Malick was raised Assyrian Catholic (that is to say Iraqi, or Chaldean Catholic) in Waco, himself, and that is also evident in the film. He also then went to a high class Episcopalian Prep School in Austin.
This film is obviously fruit of all of that study, and all of those philosophical and religious influences, and so is just as pretentious and interesting, as well as alternately staunch and new agey as you'd expect.
The family is Catholic and are often depicted at mass. Their priest is shown at one point giving a homily on the Book of Job in which he hammers home the futility of all worldly things, and the necessity of grace and the salvation of God which is beyond all human understanding: "his thoughts are infinitely above ours.."
The film also opens with a verse from one of my very favorite chapters in the entire Bible, also in Job: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation... while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" This is from Chapter 38 where God first takes the stage after Job has been sitting on his dung heap being heckled by his friends who have all sorts of opinions as to why Job has fallen on such hard times for the first 37 chapters.
The first 37 chapters are like much Christian discourse in other words: "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." They babble, then leave. It's like one long modern evangelical service, a whole lot of bullshit and preaching, only without any rock tunes. I could never be a low church protestant, getting preached and sung at all the time like that. I'm so glad we have liturgy and generally short homilies..
Anyhow, it's when Job is alone that God shows up and puts a pile driver through things. Job had been a bit upset that all these horrible things had befallen him, and was annoyed at God. But he never took up his so called friends' challenge to simply curse God and die. He kept on keeping on, cranky but faithful to the end, enthroned on his pile of shit.
Malick quotes the perfect line for every jackass who thinks they understand what the Book of Genesis "really" means in "historical" or "scientific" terms.
Where you there? Who are you to lecture me about what I did? You know nothing.
That no mere man may boast before He Who Lives and Reigns.
Malick leaves out - and this is telling, I think - the lines just before this, where God says to Job "Stand up. Gird your loins like a man. I will examine and I will judge you."
Judge. You.
This movie treats creation with such poetic power, and then casts the lives of this particular family against that cosmic backdrop in a way that is neither condescending or gimmicky. The grandeur of the human being, the human person, of our collective consciousness and our love, is as astounding as everything else in time and space - in fact, it is apparently the only thing that gives any of the other astonishing things that are any meaning. Only we contemplate, only we worship. Malick's film is one long testament to that truth.
But despite the proto- Christian themes in the film, and the repeated prayers in which every primary character prays and seeks the intercession of other characters ("I" love "you") in religious language, even addressing God as a person ("I give my son to you") the full blown presence of that transcendent Other is not felt. The film dances around this felt near absence gently, which is why it seems to verge on a sort of "new age" vibe..
The mother (Jessica Chastain's character) also makes a powerful statement at the beginning of the film that opposes grace to nature ("there is the way of grace and the way of nature") where grace is described as being selfless, liberating and free, while nature is described as grasping, controlling and selfish. The mother seems to be meant to be taking the way of grace, while the father and his oldest son follow the way of nature.
While I get the point, and somewhat credit it, I thought to myself that this is not technically true. I think nature is a manifestation of grace, and departing from grace disfigures, and is un-natural. The fall is the deprivation of grace in nature, that is evil, sin and death. Nature itself is good, being created by God (who is the only "super" natural being, even spirits and angels are natural, whether fallen or not, on this point I refer you to Aquinas) and in the Catholic economy of grace redeemed by the Church which is Christ's sacramental action, the energies of God that take on "material" expressions.
That's in a way a quibble (and note that I typed that off the cuff, so my way off expressing it may not be as precise or correct as it should be) but it's an important one.
I was left wondering about Malick's deeper agenda, whether he was thinking in terms of the Kabbalic or ancient Egyptian "Tree of Life" or other variations of that idea, and how much those ideas may have impacted his film.
I incidentally bought a beautiful papyrus of this depiction of the Egyptian mythological Tree of Life when I was living in Cairo, which I gave to Rich & JD. They've framed it beautifully, and it looks fantastic:
I really like it, and may need to go back to Cairo to pick up a few more.
The thing about this movie though is that while this is definitely affirming of the immense beauty and dignity of the individual human person, it sort of goes vague on the ultimate source of that personhood.
More unitarian than trinitarian in the final analysis, it seems to me. Not that that is a bad thing. I'm merely observing for the record.
Final word: see this film if it sounds at all interesting to you.
Just stay away from that third pint. It'll mess you up.
[Footnote: I just watched the video about the casting of the film that I post at the head of the review.. I apparently misunderstood what happened entirely, in that I thought the eldest son was the one who died, but apparently it was one of the younger ones. Sean Penn depicts the eldest son as a middle aged man.. i leave my review as is, because thaat confusion is a testament to the discursive, non- linear style of the film. I normally don't get confused by movies, but this one was unusually indeterminate. ]
---
160 Parks in Three Years? Am I Supposed to Be Impressed?
So, the big news this Sunday is that my parents made their local paper, the Villages Daily Sun ("The Only Paper in North America with a Growing Subscriber Base! The Villages: The Internet? No one here knows how to use any technology developed after 1975!"). They're featured as the Villagers of the week. The Sun does weekly stories on Villagers with nifty hobbies ("He has every single Frank Sinatra album ever cut embossed framed and mounted on the walls of his house!" or "She collects ceramic cows, look how there's no open shelf or counter space in her home!")..
Somehow the newspaper found out that my parents have been visiting Florida State parks these last three years, and that they finally visited their last park this past week.
This is the result:
This last Monday I actually accidentally ran into my Dad at Lake Griffin State Park in Lady Lake (the park closest to my parents' house) as he was finally dropping off his "Passport" booklet with all the stamps from each park in it. I was ironically and serendipitously there to pick my own passport booklet up. I'd decided (inspired by them) to use the parks as interim destinations in my road trip to discover Florida this summer.
It was Monday, July 20th.
This past week I've been to 13 parks. When I was in Orlando (for three days) I only visited three, but these last three days I've been to nine. I have to admit that with only one exception I've basically blown through them, only spending about 20 minutes driving around, getting out of the car to walk around for five or ten minutes then leaving. That's because they've all been dedicated to camping and RV sites, fishing, hiking, nature walks. There've been a couple with horse and mountain biking trails trails, too. One park, Payne's Creek, is a historical park centered on the site of a Federal fort built in 1849 during the last Seminole War. I spent an hour there in the museum and walking around the location the blockhouse had been built.
The one park I spent a bunch of time at, actually going there twice and staying for hours, was Wekiwa Springs, which is a first magnitude spring that is the source of of the Wekiva River, which we - my parents and Aunt Mary Jo - went canoeing down a year ago. We saw this 20+ foot alligator, and a bunch of smaller gators on the river, which is separated from the swimming hole around the spring where all the juicy people (hundreds of them on a summer day like we've been having) are frolicking by a net and a row of floating logs, I think. I didn't examine the anti-gator defense that closely, but it didn't seem all that formidable.. Nothing 20' of hungry primordial lizard couldn't probably blow through if he really wanted..
Anyway, this coming week I'm going to go to all the parks between here and Key West. They're all along the ocean, and most have good beaches, so I'm going to spend more time at these ones..
Then, I'm going to turn north through the Everglades and head toward Tampa. Then, I'll go to the St. Augustine and Jacksonville area, then cut west toward the panhandle and Pensacola.
This will take maybe a month, month and a half.
What I'm saying is that I am going to get every single park stamp in my Passport booklet in less than 2 months, hoss.
All visited by August 20th, 2011.
That's right. I'm throwing down.
Watch me now. Watch me roll. It's hammertime.
---
Somehow the newspaper found out that my parents have been visiting Florida State parks these last three years, and that they finally visited their last park this past week.
This is the result:
This last Monday I actually accidentally ran into my Dad at Lake Griffin State Park in Lady Lake (the park closest to my parents' house) as he was finally dropping off his "Passport" booklet with all the stamps from each park in it. I was ironically and serendipitously there to pick my own passport booklet up. I'd decided (inspired by them) to use the parks as interim destinations in my road trip to discover Florida this summer.
It was Monday, July 20th.
This past week I've been to 13 parks. When I was in Orlando (for three days) I only visited three, but these last three days I've been to nine. I have to admit that with only one exception I've basically blown through them, only spending about 20 minutes driving around, getting out of the car to walk around for five or ten minutes then leaving. That's because they've all been dedicated to camping and RV sites, fishing, hiking, nature walks. There've been a couple with horse and mountain biking trails trails, too. One park, Payne's Creek, is a historical park centered on the site of a Federal fort built in 1849 during the last Seminole War. I spent an hour there in the museum and walking around the location the blockhouse had been built.
The one park I spent a bunch of time at, actually going there twice and staying for hours, was Wekiwa Springs, which is a first magnitude spring that is the source of of the Wekiva River, which we - my parents and Aunt Mary Jo - went canoeing down a year ago. We saw this 20+ foot alligator, and a bunch of smaller gators on the river, which is separated from the swimming hole around the spring where all the juicy people (hundreds of them on a summer day like we've been having) are frolicking by a net and a row of floating logs, I think. I didn't examine the anti-gator defense that closely, but it didn't seem all that formidable.. Nothing 20' of hungry primordial lizard couldn't probably blow through if he really wanted..
Anyway, this coming week I'm going to go to all the parks between here and Key West. They're all along the ocean, and most have good beaches, so I'm going to spend more time at these ones..
Then, I'm going to turn north through the Everglades and head toward Tampa. Then, I'll go to the St. Augustine and Jacksonville area, then cut west toward the panhandle and Pensacola.
This will take maybe a month, month and a half.
What I'm saying is that I am going to get every single park stamp in my Passport booklet in less than 2 months, hoss.
All visited by August 20th, 2011.
That's right. I'm throwing down.
Watch me now. Watch me roll. It's hammertime.
---
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Pictures of the Day: Photo Series on the Kissimee Region & the Prairie Lakes of the South Central Floridian Peninsula
I spent the day driving around the great orange grove that is south central Florida between Tampa Bay and Cape Canaveral. Kissimmee and the Prairie Lakes are directly above Okeechobee Lake, which is that great round lake in Southern Florida west of Miami that merges south and westward into the Everglades that embrace the entire southern fourth of the state west of Dade County.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to drive down to the lake, then east to the Atlantic, then south down the coast toward Miami.
This is a watertower in an orange grove in Frostproof, Florida.
Frostproof: a charming poetical incantatory name for a citrus growing town, I thought.
Charismatic megafauna sighting: tropical jungle deer along road at Lake Kissimmee State Park.
Florida black buzzards at roadside dinner in orange grove. Not the same deer as above..
I took a cool video of them chowing down, but it's maybe a bit too visceral for public consumption? Eh? I'll post it if anyone dares me.
Driving in the "hammock" forest at Highlands Hammock State Park.
One of many pleasures particular to Florida: Swimming with Alligators. I'm still enough of a neophyte here to find signs like this novel and funny.
At first I thought they were limes, but I guess they're immature oranges. Also, my camera lens is cloudy. I've just cleaned it, we'll see if that helps, tommorrow..
Cargill has a huge juice plant in Frostproof. Their moniker's emblazoned on that watertower.
This banner was on the fence by the Cargill plant entrance.
A second sign by the Cargill gate, this one lampooning former governor Charlie Crist (who ran for the Senate as an independent against the ultimately victorious Republican tea party candidate Marco Rubio this last election cycle, so the banner's a little dated) for being polite to the President.
I guess that all pretty much clears up where Cargill's management stands on Mr. Obama.
This is the sign in front of the Masonic lodge in Sebring, Florida where I'm sleeping tonight. You can do the occult symbolism and numerology on that inverted pentagram and pentagon yourselves.
The more I look at Masons, the creepier they seem, and less I like them.
And lastly, an ugly statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in front of St. Catherine's, the parish where I'll be going to mass tomorrow. They have a 12 noon Spanish celebration, and I think that's just my ticket..
---
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to drive down to the lake, then east to the Atlantic, then south down the coast toward Miami.
This is a watertower in an orange grove in Frostproof, Florida.
Frostproof: a charming poetical incantatory name for a citrus growing town, I thought.
Charismatic megafauna sighting: tropical jungle deer along road at Lake Kissimmee State Park.
Florida black buzzards at roadside dinner in orange grove. Not the same deer as above..
I took a cool video of them chowing down, but it's maybe a bit too visceral for public consumption? Eh? I'll post it if anyone dares me.
Driving in the "hammock" forest at Highlands Hammock State Park.
One of many pleasures particular to Florida: Swimming with Alligators. I'm still enough of a neophyte here to find signs like this novel and funny.
At first I thought they were limes, but I guess they're immature oranges. Also, my camera lens is cloudy. I've just cleaned it, we'll see if that helps, tommorrow..
Cargill has a huge juice plant in Frostproof. Their moniker's emblazoned on that watertower.
This banner was on the fence by the Cargill plant entrance.
A second sign by the Cargill gate, this one lampooning former governor Charlie Crist (who ran for the Senate as an independent against the ultimately victorious Republican tea party candidate Marco Rubio this last election cycle, so the banner's a little dated) for being polite to the President.
I guess that all pretty much clears up where Cargill's management stands on Mr. Obama.
This is the sign in front of the Masonic lodge in Sebring, Florida where I'm sleeping tonight. You can do the occult symbolism and numerology on that inverted pentagram and pentagon yourselves.
The more I look at Masons, the creepier they seem, and less I like them.
And lastly, an ugly statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in front of St. Catherine's, the parish where I'll be going to mass tomorrow. They have a 12 noon Spanish celebration, and I think that's just my ticket..
---
A Nomad Song
lyrics:
I thought I was moving but my legs were broken,
Words were coming out but they were left unspoken..
Maybe I was dreaming in my head, in my head.
Memories were noted but I hadn't lived them,
Swords were on my heart but I had long forgived them..
Funny how the hurtful voices seem to slip away.
Chorus:
Where am I now?
I don't know how
I wound up in this place again.
How am I now?
Just bringing me down.
I'm looking for a house where the door is open,
My body's moving fast but my spirit's broken..
Where am I now?
Oh, anytime you break and turn the cycles change.
Water starts pouring down your face again,
You find yourself falling in the safety net you used to call home.
When you focus all your little thoughts and troubles
To the place of clear and cloudy clouds that rumble,
Standing in a field of open avenues with no place to go..
Chorus
Ah, my lips are set and parted but my head is empty,
I try to spit it out but it won't exempt me
From feeling like it's out in the open said and done.
Telling's just talking that turns into speeches,
Doesn't aid the body with the hand that reaches..
Stumble in the void to find there's no one there.
Chorus
---
Friday, June 24, 2011
Picture of the Day: Aardvarks at Play
These two guys were playing tag in the middle of the road when I did the rounds at Hillsborough River State Park this afternoon. I say they look like Aardvarks. But they could be Capybaras, Voles, Coypuses, Feral Pigs, Opossums, or Armadillos? Or some other exotic critter..? I dunno.
They sat there for a good minute rolling around in the road, which gave me just enough time to grab my camera and snap this crappy shot. In my defense, there was a car behind me, and it seemed that I had no other option than to take the shot through my windshield, which explains the cloudiness of the image.
I obviously need to learn how to use the damn thing, and take a good picture here..
To that end, I hereby vow to post an image a day of mes voyages, with the aim of actually producing images worth looking at..
---
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Discursive Beginnings: My Great American Road Trip..
These coming few months I am going to follow John Steinbeck, Herman Melville, Chris McCandless, Bringham Young, Lewis & Clark, Johnny Apple Seed, David Bowie, John Ross, the Lilies of the Field's Homer Smith and all the rest. This blog will serve as a waylog, a testament to my journey across this great continent. This was one of the things I was debating whether to write out. I've decided I'm not only going to write it out, I'll film some of it too.
One of the things that I've been failing to do is document my travel well. That's going to change, and I'm going to share the proof of it here.
The first of the month my lease in Vermont ended. I packed all my stuff I had in that apartment into my car and drove south. The first week of June I spent with my brother Rich and sister JD on Long Island, playing checkers (her very first game no less) with Izzy and celebrating Sam's third birthday. When I got to Florida, I stuffed almost all my stuff back into the 11' by 11' garage sized rented storage space that I've kept most of my possessions during these last four or five years of nomadism, and then spent a few days visiting with my parents last week.
Then, I hit the open road. Just me and Emma. When I bought her, I made sure to take a tape measure to the rear with the backseats down. She's a very svelte station wagon, dubbed a "sportwagen" by VW, and has 67 cubic feet of storage space back there. With the shotgun seat all the way forward there's well over six and half feet of room for me (at 6' 2") to stretch all the way out and sleep in.
Which I do every night. Crack all the very tinted windows an inch or so, open the panoramic sunroof all the way and close its screen all the way forward (usually there's no rain expected, I check the forecast before bed) and open the back hatch, leaving it slightly open, resting on my rubber imitation croc sandals. I have a rechargeable battery powered fan with two batteries that I charge off my car's circuit (cigarette lighter y-jacks on the car's two cigarette lighter outlets power my GPS and let me recharge all my phone and other batteries simultaneously).. I can also recharge my laptop and run any other appliance because there's a normal 120 V 60 Hz household plug on the back of the center front seat arm rest..
I find far dark corners in Walmart parking lots or along a dead-end road in a state forest or other such cozy places where the cops and other annoying types will leave me alone for eight hours, to get some rest.
I've been sleeping in my shorts with two pillows atop my sleeping bag, inflatable pad and two warm throw blankets. Gallon of water and back scratcher close at hand, fan suspended from the roof handle by the door, blowing air at my head all night long. Battery lasts until just after dawn, which acts as a nice wake up mechanism. Fan cuts out and I start to sweat, a nice sauna effect that tells me it's time to get up.
I get online at least once a day at McDonald's or Starbuck's. Can I say once again for the record how much I love the remodeled Micky D's by the way? I hit them for a grilled chicken Asian salad and wild berry or pineapple mango smoothie for dinner, or a bacon egg and cheese bagel and large sugar free iced coffee for breakfast every day. Even Starbuck's is getting better, in that they don't seem to be over- roasting their beans to the point of mildly unpleasant bitterness anymore.. Huge props to both chains for the free WiFi, anyway.
This is how I've been living this last week. I was initially uncertain if I was going to take to the road for long, but it has been bliss. Every day's been another release, another small revelation. This, without much effort: I've merely been mucking about the Orlando area, going to the local state parks, and exploring the city. I've been trying to swim every day, and discover all the beaches and natural first magnitude springs around here. I'm trying to scout as much as I can so that when everyone's visiting Florida we know where to go. There's more than the theme parks to be had, and I'm beginning to gain much more respect for this place. I'm beginning to really like it here.
No absolute clear idea where to go or what to do, though, so I've decided just to live my way forward and let the road take me wherever it will. I do have a series of ideas of things I want to see - Burning Man, Civil War and Revolutionary battlefields, Branson, Catholic and Orthodox churches, temples of any denomination, good independent movie theaters, any sort of park, good bars and honkytonks, natural swimmable springs, classic diners, Mormon pageants, stuff like that. But the methodology of actually encountering these things (the rhythm and art of arriving, which is not as simple as just driving wherever there happens to be - one must know how to encounter such places, know how to meet the people who come with them well.. ) is something I need to grow into.
I just need to relax, I think. I want to fall back in love with this country. It's been a rough decade, and she and I have been having issues. It's time to spend some time with her again, have a second honeymoon and recapture that magic we used to have.
So I'm just going to plunge in, and let whatever happens come. I've decided not to push or plan too much, and let the moment unfold and carry me where it wants. This is my favorite way of traveling, and always brings good things with it.
I was initially going to go canoeing in Maine next month, to do the most epic trip possible, but decided that because no one has the time or interest to come with me on short (two month it was) notice, that I'll postpone that.
I've also been thinking the last couple years about making a pilgrimage to venerate Our Lady of Guadalupe in Ciudad Mexico, but that too has been elusive, in that the troubles in Mexico and the other circumstances of my life have been persistently mitigating against it.
I've been wanting to see her though for a while, ever since I abortively began my pilgrimage by bus from Obregon but ended up waylaid by illness in a cheap hotel room in Mazatlan puking my brains out in 1996. That disaster was due to my own foolishness (another story that I may tell soon, if the words come to my fingers) and I've been wandering afield ever since. Time maybe to pick up that path, again.
I'll receive whatever comes, as I've said. We'll see.
These last few days I've seen three movies: Super 8 (second time, IMAX theatre), Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Tree of Life. These three films actually have quite a bit in common in my mind, and I am going to review all three of them seperately on the blog this coming week, as I get time to do it.
[Aside: Orlando has a decent movie theatre scene, which I love. I saw the Tree of Life here, one of a half dozen things that I've experienced this last week that has radically changed my feelings (which had been very negative - I'd only seen Orlando as a great swathe of strip malls orbiting the theme parks) for the better. Not a bad town, Orlando. ]
One further thing:
It's very interesting: but last summer I couldn't stand the heat here, and when I lived in Gainesville a few years back I felt the humidity ferociously. This summer though, that's all gone. Either Florida has become gentle, or else I am become acclimated and tough. For her blows now are become as caresses..
The weather is not bothering me at all, and that is marvelous. I've gotten this great tan, and the heat and sun are intoxicant.
Something's fundamentally changed. Circle come full round.
Ultreya, Suseya, then. Let's see where this takes me.
---
One of the things that I've been failing to do is document my travel well. That's going to change, and I'm going to share the proof of it here.
The first of the month my lease in Vermont ended. I packed all my stuff I had in that apartment into my car and drove south. The first week of June I spent with my brother Rich and sister JD on Long Island, playing checkers (her very first game no less) with Izzy and celebrating Sam's third birthday. When I got to Florida, I stuffed almost all my stuff back into the 11' by 11' garage sized rented storage space that I've kept most of my possessions during these last four or five years of nomadism, and then spent a few days visiting with my parents last week.
Then, I hit the open road. Just me and Emma. When I bought her, I made sure to take a tape measure to the rear with the backseats down. She's a very svelte station wagon, dubbed a "sportwagen" by VW, and has 67 cubic feet of storage space back there. With the shotgun seat all the way forward there's well over six and half feet of room for me (at 6' 2") to stretch all the way out and sleep in.
Which I do every night. Crack all the very tinted windows an inch or so, open the panoramic sunroof all the way and close its screen all the way forward (usually there's no rain expected, I check the forecast before bed) and open the back hatch, leaving it slightly open, resting on my rubber imitation croc sandals. I have a rechargeable battery powered fan with two batteries that I charge off my car's circuit (cigarette lighter y-jacks on the car's two cigarette lighter outlets power my GPS and let me recharge all my phone and other batteries simultaneously).. I can also recharge my laptop and run any other appliance because there's a normal 120 V 60 Hz household plug on the back of the center front seat arm rest..
I find far dark corners in Walmart parking lots or along a dead-end road in a state forest or other such cozy places where the cops and other annoying types will leave me alone for eight hours, to get some rest.
I've been sleeping in my shorts with two pillows atop my sleeping bag, inflatable pad and two warm throw blankets. Gallon of water and back scratcher close at hand, fan suspended from the roof handle by the door, blowing air at my head all night long. Battery lasts until just after dawn, which acts as a nice wake up mechanism. Fan cuts out and I start to sweat, a nice sauna effect that tells me it's time to get up.
I get online at least once a day at McDonald's or Starbuck's. Can I say once again for the record how much I love the remodeled Micky D's by the way? I hit them for a grilled chicken Asian salad and wild berry or pineapple mango smoothie for dinner, or a bacon egg and cheese bagel and large sugar free iced coffee for breakfast every day. Even Starbuck's is getting better, in that they don't seem to be over- roasting their beans to the point of mildly unpleasant bitterness anymore.. Huge props to both chains for the free WiFi, anyway.
This is how I've been living this last week. I was initially uncertain if I was going to take to the road for long, but it has been bliss. Every day's been another release, another small revelation. This, without much effort: I've merely been mucking about the Orlando area, going to the local state parks, and exploring the city. I've been trying to swim every day, and discover all the beaches and natural first magnitude springs around here. I'm trying to scout as much as I can so that when everyone's visiting Florida we know where to go. There's more than the theme parks to be had, and I'm beginning to gain much more respect for this place. I'm beginning to really like it here.
No absolute clear idea where to go or what to do, though, so I've decided just to live my way forward and let the road take me wherever it will. I do have a series of ideas of things I want to see - Burning Man, Civil War and Revolutionary battlefields, Branson, Catholic and Orthodox churches, temples of any denomination, good independent movie theaters, any sort of park, good bars and honkytonks, natural swimmable springs, classic diners, Mormon pageants, stuff like that. But the methodology of actually encountering these things (the rhythm and art of arriving, which is not as simple as just driving wherever there happens to be - one must know how to encounter such places, know how to meet the people who come with them well.. ) is something I need to grow into.
I just need to relax, I think. I want to fall back in love with this country. It's been a rough decade, and she and I have been having issues. It's time to spend some time with her again, have a second honeymoon and recapture that magic we used to have.
So I'm just going to plunge in, and let whatever happens come. I've decided not to push or plan too much, and let the moment unfold and carry me where it wants. This is my favorite way of traveling, and always brings good things with it.
I was initially going to go canoeing in Maine next month, to do the most epic trip possible, but decided that because no one has the time or interest to come with me on short (two month it was) notice, that I'll postpone that.
I've also been thinking the last couple years about making a pilgrimage to venerate Our Lady of Guadalupe in Ciudad Mexico, but that too has been elusive, in that the troubles in Mexico and the other circumstances of my life have been persistently mitigating against it.
I've been wanting to see her though for a while, ever since I abortively began my pilgrimage by bus from Obregon but ended up waylaid by illness in a cheap hotel room in Mazatlan puking my brains out in 1996. That disaster was due to my own foolishness (another story that I may tell soon, if the words come to my fingers) and I've been wandering afield ever since. Time maybe to pick up that path, again.
I'll receive whatever comes, as I've said. We'll see.
These last few days I've seen three movies: Super 8 (second time, IMAX theatre), Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Tree of Life. These three films actually have quite a bit in common in my mind, and I am going to review all three of them seperately on the blog this coming week, as I get time to do it.
[Aside: Orlando has a decent movie theatre scene, which I love. I saw the Tree of Life here, one of a half dozen things that I've experienced this last week that has radically changed my feelings (which had been very negative - I'd only seen Orlando as a great swathe of strip malls orbiting the theme parks) for the better. Not a bad town, Orlando. ]
One further thing:
It's very interesting: but last summer I couldn't stand the heat here, and when I lived in Gainesville a few years back I felt the humidity ferociously. This summer though, that's all gone. Either Florida has become gentle, or else I am become acclimated and tough. For her blows now are become as caresses..
The weather is not bothering me at all, and that is marvelous. I've gotten this great tan, and the heat and sun are intoxicant.
Something's fundamentally changed. Circle come full round.
Ultreya, Suseya, then. Let's see where this takes me.
---
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
So, I've Come to a Momentous Decision: This Here Blog Continues..
A few weeks ago, and with my characteristic rashness, I leapt into the abyss knowingly and had a brash encounter with my own conscience. A sort of brush with purgatory or maybe even a foretaste of hell. A near death experience. One that sat me back on my haunches these last few weeks, which is why I stepped away from this here blog, and even briefly considered shutting the whole damn thing down for good. I did pull it offline a few days in fact, as some of you noticed. In the aftermath of the shock, the blog seemed rather superficial and spurious, too revealing and offensively opinionated while not actually telling enough of the truth. Inconsequential and self indulgent, in other words. Things my conscience suggested are all too characteristic of too much of my life.
I had other things to think and pray about in any case, and nothing to say to say about any of it. Trauma induced aphasia, whether passing or not was uncertain for a while there.
But I've slowly come back around, and due in no small part to the few messages of concern and support I received while convalescent. Thank you, my miniscule public. I appreciate the well wishes. I shall not forsake you, because I guess I might as well say those things that I've been meaning to say anyway, if only to amuse the few dozen or so of you who regularly read what I post. The discipline of writing, of trying to do it well, is a worthy exercise in itself I guess.
Like virtually everything I created this blog to say, and have not yet but mean to put up, the details of what happened last month will remain my own until the muse dictates.
There are too many stories jostling for air, and not enough ether to inspire any of them usually. It's a question of what my heart and gut tell. Possibly both are suppressed by my head too often, in that reason usually counsels me to err on the side of discretion..
But good writing demands the truth, and the truth is always good. It is only a question of making a good confession, and letting the stories (be they of pear trees or prostitutes or whateverhaveyou) free to testify.
Here's to pre- empting the shouting from the rooftop and all that.
On recommence.
---
I had other things to think and pray about in any case, and nothing to say to say about any of it. Trauma induced aphasia, whether passing or not was uncertain for a while there.
But I've slowly come back around, and due in no small part to the few messages of concern and support I received while convalescent. Thank you, my miniscule public. I appreciate the well wishes. I shall not forsake you, because I guess I might as well say those things that I've been meaning to say anyway, if only to amuse the few dozen or so of you who regularly read what I post. The discipline of writing, of trying to do it well, is a worthy exercise in itself I guess.
Like virtually everything I created this blog to say, and have not yet but mean to put up, the details of what happened last month will remain my own until the muse dictates.
There are too many stories jostling for air, and not enough ether to inspire any of them usually. It's a question of what my heart and gut tell. Possibly both are suppressed by my head too often, in that reason usually counsels me to err on the side of discretion..
But good writing demands the truth, and the truth is always good. It is only a question of making a good confession, and letting the stories (be they of pear trees or prostitutes or whateverhaveyou) free to testify.
Here's to pre- empting the shouting from the rooftop and all that.
On recommence.
---
Friday, May 27, 2011
basta ya, callete.
Since my friendship with JDawg ended this weekend, it seems especially appropriate that the song that was the definitive tune for our trip down Baja to Cabo San Lucas four years (or so? I lose track) ago just got put up on YouTube.
This is one of the best songs ever recorded, and is one of my tunes. Hat tip to Owen White at the Ubiquitarian for posting it and bringing my attention to that it's now online.
Lyrics:
(Chip:)
Yes we can talk it out,
Tell me what it's all about,
But don't speak in English.
You can just let it flow,
Tell it right from your soul,
But don't say words I understand.
Because I've had enough
Of that kind of stuff,
For a long, long time.
(Carrie:)
You can tell me where to go,
Tell me what I don't know,
But don't speak in English.
You can talk politics,
Get your political fix,
But don't say words that I understand.
Because I've had enough
Of that kind of stuff,
For a long, long time.
You can let the telephone ring,
But don't pass me that thing.
I am not a receiver.
You can play the music you choose,
Western swing or Delta blues
(Where the wasted words are few,
And Old John Prine will do..)
And we'll just talk for a while.
You can let the telephone ring,
But don't pass me that thing.
I am not a receiver.
You can play the music you choose,
Western swing or Delta blues
(Where the wasted words are few,
And Old Van Zandt will do, maybe two..)
And we'll just talk for a while.
And when we can talk it out,
You tell me what it's all about..
Just don't speak in English.
If you get it in your head
That you want to take me to bed,
Just don't say words that I understand..
'Cause I've enough of that kind of stuff
For a long time..
'Cause I've enough of that kind of stuff
For a long, long, long, long time..
---
This is one of the best songs ever recorded, and is one of my tunes. Hat tip to Owen White at the Ubiquitarian for posting it and bringing my attention to that it's now online.
Lyrics:
(Chip:)
Yes we can talk it out,
Tell me what it's all about,
But don't speak in English.
You can just let it flow,
Tell it right from your soul,
But don't say words I understand.
Because I've had enough
Of that kind of stuff,
For a long, long time.
(Carrie:)
You can tell me where to go,
Tell me what I don't know,
But don't speak in English.
You can talk politics,
Get your political fix,
But don't say words that I understand.
Because I've had enough
Of that kind of stuff,
For a long, long time.
You can let the telephone ring,
But don't pass me that thing.
I am not a receiver.
You can play the music you choose,
Western swing or Delta blues
(Where the wasted words are few,
And Old John Prine will do..)
And we'll just talk for a while.
You can let the telephone ring,
But don't pass me that thing.
I am not a receiver.
You can play the music you choose,
Western swing or Delta blues
(Where the wasted words are few,
And Old Van Zandt will do, maybe two..)
And we'll just talk for a while.
And when we can talk it out,
You tell me what it's all about..
Just don't speak in English.
If you get it in your head
That you want to take me to bed,
Just don't say words that I understand..
'Cause I've enough of that kind of stuff
For a long time..
'Cause I've enough of that kind of stuff
For a long, long, long, long time..
---
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