1. I was relieved this morning that Maggie and Charly had slept peacefully through the night, both staying very close to me in bed.
The vet's office called me later in the morning to check up on the corgis. I told the caller that Maggie had just started making honking sounds, that the noises were coming from her throat and chest. As we were leaving the vet's office on Tuesday, Maggie had had some sneezing, as if to get water out of her nose, and I wondered if Maggie might be experiencing some next day irritation from having had her teeth cleaned.
The caller confirmed that this was most likely the case, but that if Maggie continued to cough and honk on into the end of the week, I should call back.
I was preparing to drive to CdA to go to St. Luke's for the noontime Ash Wednesday service. I decided to stay home. I couldn't leave Maggie while she was experiencing this irritation and making these sounds.
By noon, Maggie stopped honking and never honked again today.
Both dogs rested comfortably through the afternoon and evening. Maggie spent a lot of time on the bed; Charly rested and slept against my ankle or within inches of me throughout the day. When I watched television, Maggie left the bed and joined Charly and me and took her favorite tv room spot in the chair I wasn't sitting in.
2. Having watched a documentary film on Bill Evans yesterday, I watched another documentary about a jazz pianist today, Oscar Peterson: Keeping the Groove Alive. I enjoyed the interviews with Peterson, his stories, and his deep appreciation for those who taught him and influenced him. The point he, and other musicians, made that stuck with me most deeply was the necessity for accomplished musicians to be selfish.
By this, they meant that their dedication to playing, practicing, improving, exploring, collaborating, performing, traveling, and the meeting of the other demands of their art means the music takes precedent over everything else: family, marriage, friendships, and other aspects of the musician's life. Peterson expressed regret that he married so young, that he rarely saw his children, but expressed no regret about his dedication to the piano and the ensembles he performed with. He only wishes he would have married for the first time later in life. My sense was that this dedication to music over all else in his life was not so much a result of a hunger for fame or a successful career, but of love and a pursuit of the deepest kind of happiness and vitality, both of which he expresses joyfully as he plays.
3. I let the music of Oscar Peterson take hold in me and pondered more upon the way playing music invigorated him, vitalized him.
Then I entered a completely different world.
I returned to the movie, Winter's Bone.
I last watched this movie in 2011. When I watched it before, I found the world of this movie grotesque. This didn't change. It takes place in the Ozarks of Missouri, focusing on an extended family deeply involved in the manufacture, use, and sale of meth. Success in this world depends upon codes of secrecy and loyalty. Violation of any one or any part of these codes must be answered with intimidation, beatings, or murder. This is what I find grotesque.
Seventeen year old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in this world with her mute and very ill mother and her little brother and sister. Her father, Jessup, is under arrest for manufacturing meth, but has disappeared. He's out on bail. Jessup posted a bond that would surrender the house Ree and her family live in to the court if he doesn't appear for trial.
To save her family from eviction, Ree goes in search of her father to make sure he shows up in court.
Ree's search is kind of odyssey as she roams the countryside, confronting members of her extended family, finding her father's lover, and searching for any information she can find about her father. She descends into the dark depths of this criminal world, suffers at the hands of those protecting their world's code. Her plight also touches something humane in members of her extended family. It's startling.
This movie is not a documentary, but it feels like one. The movie's director, Debra Granik, and the movie's crew, won the trust of a community of people living in the rural Ozarks. Many of the movie's characters are people who live in the area. No sets were built for this movie. It was filmed on location in local businesses, agency buildings, and a high school. Moreover, the filming took place in people's houses whose decor and surroundings were left unchanged for the making of the movie.
The movie's Director of Photography, Michael McDonough, creates stunning images of this world's frigid and unforgiving landscape as well as the details of the interiors of the characters' homes. His work is anthropological and enhances the documentary feel of the movie. The movie is a sobering and deeply affecting visual experience.
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