1. This summer, July 15-17, 2022, the Kellogg High School class of 1972 will be holding its 50th high school reunion. Today, Stu, Lars, Diane, and I met with the chef and manager at the Hilltop Inn in Kingston to iron out details of the dinner we plan to have there on Saturday, July 16th. I'm going to hold off on discussing those details until everything is finalized and the registration form is ready to be posted and mailed out, but today it felt like we made a significant step forward in our planning and I'm ready to start reaching out to my classmates, getting the word out about the reunion dates, and trying to get a sense of who will come and who would like registrations forms sent to them.
2. Diane drove me to the Hilltop meeting. Afterward, because we want to buy beer from North Idaho Mountain Brewing in Wallace, I said to Diane that I thought I'd go up to City Limits one of these days, test a few beers, and see what beer would most likely have the broadest appeal for our reunion. She replied that we ought to go up there right now. I thought that was a great idea, suggested that we get a hold of Debbie and ask her to join us, and that's just what happened.
We went to City Limits. We sampled beers. We enjoyed lunch. We had a fun time yakkin'. It was a fun and delicious way to round out our work on making plans for the reunion.
3. I returned home and before long retired to the Vizio room and finished watching the movie, Stevie.
In it, Glenda Jackson portrays the life, musings, and poetry of English poet Stevie Smith (1902-1971).
I know I mentioned in my last blog post that I saw Stevie at the Magic Lantern in Spokane sometime between 1982-84.
Watching it again brought to mind how Spokane's Magic Lantern and Cinema 7 and the Bijou in Eugene awakened me to ways of making movies that were new to me, intellectually and emotionally adventurous, and that required of me concentration, often patience, and willingness to deal with serious subject matter in ways most (not all) of the movies I'd seen in mainstream theaters didn't.
It's hard to believe that it's been nearly 50 years since I started watching movies for reasons other than escape and fun entertainment. Yes. I do enjoy watching movies for those reasons, too, but a movie like Stevie, one that explores the music and rhythms of Stevie Smith's poetry, that portrays her lifelong relationship with the aunt she lived with for decades until the aunt died, that deals squarely with loneliness, death, longing, and eccentricity, a movie like Stevie is the most satisfying and stimulating for me.
I find movies like Stevie -- and many of them are international movies -- both satisfying and unsettling. Many of these movies move along slowly. For example, Stevie rarely takes us outside the flat that Stevie and her aunt live in. There's little physical action, per se, and no real plot either. Frame by frame, the movie moves slowly and more deeply into the inward life of Stevie Smith and we hear her poems, her short, often biting, most often dark, compact poems.
Tons of serious, often dark, always probing international and American movies are available on the Criterion Channel. I learned about more of them today as I listened to two more episodes of "Adventures in Moviegoing" one featuring Bill Hader, the other, Julie Taymor.
These interviews have inspired me to watch any number of movies. I think I'll turn next to some of Akira Kurosawa.
It's been a while.
I'd like to add, if anyone is still reading this!, that not all the international movies I watch or have watched are dark.
I should mention that Stevie has a number of light and endearing scenes that take place between Stevie Smith and her aunt.
I like to watch the carnival worlds of Fellini, the whimsy of some of the French New Wave movies, and other independent or international movies that are lighter, farcical, and stylish in comic ways.
Just one problem with watching movies. I can't read books and watch movies at the same time, nor can I watch college hoops.
Oh well. Long ago I accepted that I can't do it all.
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