Three Beautiful Things 08-30-2022: Nearly Perfect Fubsy Comedy, A Most Welcome Poetry Break, Darkness in NYC

1. It's funny. I have probably watched The Lavender Hill Mob at least five times and I always forget how it begins and concludes. I do always remember, though, that it tells the story of the making of a perfect crime, spearheaded by Henry "Dutch" Holland (Alec Guinness), who spends many years perfecting his image and reputation as a meek, honorable, punctual bank clerk lacking in ambition, a man way beyond reproach. But, it's a pretense, a guise. Henry Holland has a burning ambition to be wealthy and this movie tells the story of when he seizes the opportunity to rob the Bank of England.

It's a perfectly made comedy. It's light, chaotic, and ingenious. It epitomizes the kind of underdog story the Ealing Studios loved to tell through many of their post-WWII movies and Alec Guinness is absolutely flawless as in this splendid movie that Pauline Kael referred to as "the most nearly perfect fubsy comedy of all time." 

2. Tonight, Bill Davie's Poetry Break hit me just right. I enjoyed the poems he read from the mail bag and the three "Old Manhood"poems he read. The poems he read from the poetry anthology, Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy were especially fitting for my taste and mood and I enjoyed his return to poems by Billy Collins, from his book Whale Day. Bill read to an enthusiastic audience and it was fun to see that many of us were especially appreciative of Bill's selections tonight and his superb readings.

3. Recently, during my reading sessions at Vizio University, the movie Sweet Smell of Success (1957), featuring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, has been popping up in essays and on different people's list of great movies, in general, and great film noir works, in particular.

It's a brilliant movie. It's challenging. It relentlessly explores the ambition and soullessness of the two cruel and heartless characters played by Lancaster and Curtis. We move deeper and deeper into the darkness of their nihilistic pursuit of power and success in the world of celebrity and political gossip, willing to do anything to either get dirt on people or to publicize scandalous lies. In addition, Lancaster's character, J. J. Hunsecker, has a creepy and possessive obsession with his sister and his determination to ruin a love relationship she has entered into is central to the plot of this movie. 

Ambition, the drive for success, the thirst to maintain and enlarge one's power can be overtaken by destructive forces within a person and that's exactly what this movie portrays. 

This portrayal and exploration of human darkness is perfectly brought to life by James Wong Howe's  cinematography in the way he seamlessly connects the wintry nighttime exterior images of New York City with the dark interiors of bars, diners, offices, apartments, and jazz clubs. I experienced claustrophobia which was at the same time difficult to feel, but exhilarating in the ways James Wong Howe's mastery of light and shadow and the set ups of his shots created the movie's feeling of inevitable doom. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-29-2022: Family Dinner and Debbie Starts a New Job, Lunch Uptown at Backcountry, Interconnectedness in *An Inspector Calls*

 1. Today marked Debbie's first day of full time employment in Kellogg School District #391. She joins Mom, Christy, Carol, and Paul as members of our immediate family who have worked as full timers in the Kellogg district. Today was mostly a day of staff pictures snapped, welcoming meetings, informational meetings about procedures and policies, and other first day kind of subjects.  Debbie also worked on setting up her classroom. 

Back when I was a sophomore at Kellogg High School, one of my English teachers was Mrs. Clark(e). She and her husband purposely moved from job to job around the country, using their ability to find employment as a way to experience a variety of towns and regions in the USA.

Debbie did not, back in 2008, when she started teaching full time in Eugene, set out to teach in a variety of districts, but, as it turns out, that's what has happened. Suffice it to say, the Eugene's School District 4J is very different from Maryland's Prince George's County School District and neither has many (if any) similarities to Kellogg's School District #391. 

Let me be clear: saying they are vastly different from one another is a descriptive, not an evaluative statement. 

My point is that Debbie has, is, and will be learning more about the great distinctions that exist in different regions of the USA by working so closely, as teachers do, with students, parents, and fellow teachers in three vastly different school districts that really have very little in common with each other.

This was a major topic of discussion at family dinner tonight, as expected. 

Our dinner was simple and superb. We started with a cocktail called The Godfather that combined Scotch whiskey with Amaretto liqueur and enjoyed Molly's peerless bruschetta appetizer. These preliminary treats paved the way for Carol's garden fresh green salad and the delicious feta tomato baked pasta dish she prepared as our entree. 

Discussion continued about teaching elementary school and possible directions to take things and before long Christy brought out her version of an Italian Cream Cake and Carol served us flight snifters of Sambuca, an anise flavored Italian liqueur. We took a detour or two from discussing pedagogy in third-grade instruction, including Christy's report after taking Riley to the vet and discovering he has a handful of treatable maladies that are causing him discomfort. Christy was relieved to find out what Riley had contracted (some of it could be allergies) and is set to treat him with different prescriptions. 

2. Earlier in the day, I leapt into the Camry and rocketed uptown to the Backcountry Cafe (118 McKinley) and enjoyed an 11:30 lunch with Mike Stafford and Ed. Mike had been on a fly fishing trip in Montana and was headed back west. I knew the Backcountry Cafe served grinders with generous stacks of thinly sliced meat, but I didn't want to eat that much food for lunch. I soon learned, though, that the Backcountry Cafe has an extensive menu with choices ranging from brats to fish and chips to a wide variety of grilled cheese sandwiches, and much more. 

A grilled cheese sandwich sounded more like the size of meal I wanted, so I ordered a grilled Swiss cheese and bacon sandwich on rye and, once I added yellow mustard to it, it hit the spot just right. For my side, I ordered a pasta salad which was, to my surprise and delight, packed with bits of cheese, salami, and tiny green olive pieces, making it both tasty and substantial. 

3. Back home after lunch, I watched a fascinating classic British movie, An Inspector Calls (1954). 

It's a tricky movie to say a lot about because it turns out to be a very different story than what the majority of the movie leads us to believe is going on. The way the movie concludes opens up fascinating possibilities for how the movie might be interpreted. I can say, though, that no matter how one interprets it, the story focuses on human interconnection, the ways in which the results of decisions people (we) make ripple out, have impacts beyond one's (our) imagining. 

Watching this movie, in the end, reminded me in possibly an odd way of my reading over the years of Thich Nhat Hanh. His understanding of Interbeing led me to see that everything we do has an impact that reaches far beyond ourselves or even our immediate world. The characters in An Inspector Calls must face this very fact and how each character responds to what they learn gives this movie its depth. It's not a Buddhist movie, but if one has some understanding of Buddhist insight into interconnectedness and the precious value of each moment of life, this way of seeing things, at least for me, illuminates the movie and possibly opens the door to what the story's original author, J. B. Priestly, was inviting us to see in the movie. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-28-2022: How I Came to Love British Comedies, *Passport to Pimlico*, *The Smallest Show on Earth*

The following is my 5800th post here at kelloggbloggin.blogspot.com. 

1. It was possibly in 1993, on my 40th birthday. I know it was a birthday around thirty years ago.  Friends asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate. I'd read about Ealing Studios of London and how, soon after WWII ended, they made a bunch of small scale, black and white comedies. I'd recently read about two of them, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Lavender Hill Mob, both featuring Alec Guiness, and I asked that we rent them from Flicks and Pics and enjoy a double feature on my birthday.

I thought each movie was perfect. They were delightfully absurd, wonderfully performed, light, and entertaining. I didn't, however, pursue my enjoyment of these movies right away. Instead, I scratched my itch for light British comedy by reading, or listening on audio tapes, to P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie stories and they watching Stephen Frye and Hugh Laurie play those roles on the public television series, Jeeves and Wooster.

One day six or seven years ago, when we lived in Maryland, not far from the American Film Institute's Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, I rekindled my love of these movies by going to a double feature at AFI. I watched Alec Guinness in The Lavender Hill Mob and another Ealing production, The Man in the White Suit. My entire body tingled with enjoyment.

I watched more of these kind of movies soon after we moved to Kellogg and bought the Vizio and purchased a Fire Stick. Two pop right to mind: I loved watching Alec Guinness in both Barnacle Bill and Last Holiday.

So, today, I was looking into and reading about movies and somehow -- and why has it taken this long? I don't know -- it came to my attention that the British Film Institute has a streaming service for not much of a monthly fee called BFI Player Classics. It features a wide variety of classic British movies, including many produced by Ealing Studios. 

I subscribed.

2. So, today, I watched two British comedies, both with my current favorite, Margaret Rutherford, in the cast. 

I began by watching Ealing Studio's Passport to Pimlico (1949), in which a neighborhood in the London district of Pimlico discover, in the most absurd way, that they are not Londoners, not British subjects, but citizens of Burgundy. I will give no more of it away except to say that manifold forms of chaos break out and the movie becomes a most entertaining satire, lampooning the inefficiency of post-WWII bureaucracy in England and the government's general impotence when faced with a crisis -- or should I say "crisis". It's also a testament to the power of a neighborhood, with the help of the general London citizenry, to collect its resources and its wits and figure out how to survive the crisis that develops by pulling together, by helping out one another. 

3. I gave myself a short rest and then watched a sweet comedy (not from Ealing) entitled, The Smallest Show on Earth (1957). It tells the story of a couple who one day discover they have inherited a rundown cinema in the a place called Sloughboro. Given the chance to sell the Bijou, the couple decides to give running the theater a go and the movie centers around the ups and downs they experience in their venture. Not only does this movie include Margaret Rutherford in its cast, but Peter Sellers plays the Bijou's projectionist, a character over thirty years older than the actor, and both of them give performances that are at once comical and touching. 

In the near and far future, I will be charging headlong into more of the BFI's offerings, along with Criterion movies and the boxed set of discs I bought last month. 

Vizio University is getting more and more stimulating by the day. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-27-2022: Superb Time at Sam's, Erica and Darren's Wedding Reception, Splendid Nightcap at The Lounge

1. Debbie and I met up with Mare and Nomad, last night's performers at The Beanery, at Sam's for a late morning breakfast. It was a fascinating time. Mare and Nomad told us stories and shared their insights about the USA, based on their numerous travels throughout the country, everywhere from Florida to above the Arctic Circle in Fort Yukon, AK. I thought of how beautifully they performed Simon and Garfunkel's "America" on Friday night and realized why they brought such authentic energy and knowledge to the words, "look for America". Mare and Nomad also talked about the challenges of making a living as musicians and how they managed things during the shutdown portions of the pandemic.

And there was more. 

A lot more.

We packed a lot of reminiscing, sharing of insights, and the telling of family histories into our breakfast at Sam's. 

It was awesome.

2. Later in the day, Debbie and I piled into the Camry and blasted off to Post Falls. Earlier in the afternoon, Darren Hanson (Ed's son) and Erica Mauhar got married in Erica's parents' back yard and we attended the reception that followed. It was joyous gala and we sat at a huge round table with a large contingent of Kellogg friends and enjoyed eating a barbecue dinner catered by GarrenTeed BBQ -- the very same Kellogg food truck outfit that Ed and I make deliveries for from time to time. 

Debbie and I ate and visited for an hour or so. I talked with Darren on the way out and he and Erica have a fun sounding trip to Western Washington planned for the next week.

3. Debbie and I popped into The Lounge for a while once we returned to Kellogg. We had fun yakkin' with Cas and Charlie was in the house and played exquisite blues selections on The Lounge's wireless jukebox from the app on his smart phone. Debbie is taking over a third grade slot at Pinehurst Elementary from a teacher named Sara and Sara's mother and husband strolled in for a drink. Debbie had met and worked with Sara's mother, a school volunteer, when Debbie subbed at Pinehurst and they fell into great conversation. Sara's husband, Pablo, was a familiar name to me from the Facebook page "Silver Valley Classifieds" and I enjoyed hearing what's he's up to since he closed his taco truck and the Snack Shack in Kellogg. He's a busy, active, and community-minded guy with a lot on his plate. I enjoyed learning so much more about him, his work, his ministry, and his family. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-26-2022: Margaret Rutherford Doc, Yakkin' at The Lounge, Mare and Nomad and Pizza at The Beanery

 1. For over forty years, I've had a soft spot for the eccentric women portrayed in the British theater in plays like The Rivals, The Importance of Being Earnest, and many other plays. It's the sort of character the Marx brothers and the Three Stooges lampooned in their farces. When I watched Blithe Spirit a few days ago, much of my enjoyment came from watching Margaret Rutherford play just such a role as the medium, Madame Arcati and she continued in that spirit in the way she played Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple. 

So, today, I watched an hour long documentary of Margaret Rutherford's life entitled, Truly Miss Marple: The Curious Case of Margaret Rutherford. I enjoyed learning about how she got into the theater and the movies, but not until she was in her 40s. I didn't enjoy learning about struggles she worked with all her life, but I found it encouraging that her husband, the actor Stringer Davis, was a supportive and comforting spouse, helping her when things in her life were difficult. 

2. Late in the afternoon, Debbie and I headed up to the Inland Lounge. Dick Goodson and I got into a long conversation about all sorts of things, beginning with us both being 1972 high school graduates, Dick at Kootenai High and, of course, I went to Kellogg. He helped me understand the division between the Harrison kids and the Rose Lake kids at Kootenai High. We also talked about the Kootenai basketball team whom I played against in the 8th and 9th grades. He brought back to my memories names like Monte McPeak, Lance Vines, Dan White, Dicky Goodson (!), and others. I learned a lot more about Dick's working life in the woods for Kellogg Transfer in his younger days and he told me funny stories about things that happened at the Sunshine Inn and other bars and things he experienced when he helped run the Broken Wheel in Kellogg.

3. Tonight from the outdoor stage at The Beanery (formerly The Bean and The Hill Street Depot), Debbie's longtime friend from the world of music performers in Eugene, Mare Wakefield and her husband, Nomad, played and sang for three hours. 

Mare and Nomad live in Nashville and they are in the midst of nine week tour, playing house concerts and other venues across the USA, living out of their well-appointed van and traveling with their young dog. 

I hadn't heard Mare play and sing for many, many years and I'd never heard her perform with Nomad. Mare is the duo's guitarist and lead vocalist and Nomad plays keyboard and accordion and harmonizes on selected vocals. 

Mare and Nomad are stellar musicians and performers. I enjoy variety and they played an impressive range of musical styles and Mary's songwriting came at a variety of subjects with fascinating points of view and superb writing. 

It was a family outing. Carol, Christy, Molly, Debbie, and I sat at a table together. Rick Chapman joined us. On Fridays, The Beanery servers wood-fired pizzas and we enjoyed those. I especially enjoyed the Margherita pizza -- it's funny -- as I get older, I enjoy toppingless cheese pizzas more and more and the cheese pizzas we had at our table really hit the spot.

Three Beautiful Things 08-25-2022: Got My Teeth Cleaned, A Day with Miss Marple, Yellow Curry for Dinner

 1. I spent about 45 minutes or so under the care Kathy M. today over at the dentist's office. She poked, prodded, scraped, cleaned, measured, rinse, and vacuumed and afterward my mouth felt fresh and she said things looked good.

2. I spent a lot of time today entertaining myself. I decided to go almost all in with Margaret Rutherford after watching her as the eccentric medium in Blithe Spirit. I watched three of her Miss Jane Marple movies today. She appeared in four of them between 1961 and 1964. Today I watched Murder, She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963), and Murder Most Foul (1964). All of the movies follow pretty much the same story line. A murder occurs. The official police either rule the death wasn't murder, accuse the wrong person of committing it, or can't figure it out. Then, with the help of librarian Mr. Stringer, Miss Jane Marple investigates the cases by involving herself in the day to day life of people either related to the victim or, in one case, members of a theater company. By being intimately involved in their lives as a maid, a guest at an inn, and new member of the acting troupe, Miss Marple can sleuth around in ways the official police and detectives can't and it's a riot to watch. 

3. We had a cooler day today and rain fell. I hadn't made any curry for a while, so I made a pot of yellow curry sauce with shrimp and onion and cooked up some rice. I got about three quarters of the way into the cooking process and realized I hadn't put any potatoes in the sauce. I regretted this oversight when I ate my dinner. The flavor of the curry sauce is good, but it lacked the substance the potatoes would have provided. Friday, I'll boil some potatoes and add them to the sauce. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-24-2022: And When I Die, BBQ Delivery with Ed, Watching *Blithe Spirit* (1945)

 1. I was crazy about the album Blood, Sweat & Tears when it was released in 1969. Today one song from that album, "And When I Die" stood out to me today. I didn't think to have Alexa play it while I reviewed my Oregon state pension account, did some reading about Social Security, made sure all was in order over at AAA Life, and made contact with a guy at Equitable. I spent much of the day assuring myself that these things will be in order when I die, especially if I go before Debbie. I have more to do, but I got quite a bit done and conveyed quite a bit of information to Debbie.

2. Ed and I blasted over to Garren Taylor's BBQ food truck on Hill Street (GarrenTeed BBQ) to pick up an order for a social gathering up Pine Creek. Garren's dad, Dave, was at the truck and Ed and I talked with him while Garren got the hot box we were to deliver filled with trays of meat, beans, and macaroni and cheese. The delivery was a total success, the customers were very happy to have their food arrive, and Ed and I had a fun time yakkin' about all kinds of stuff going out and coming back. 

Originally, we were going to have a beer after we returned the hot box and gave Garren his customers' payment, but I hadn't eaten, so I asked to go home and I enjoyed a bowl of the cucumber, carrot, apple, garlic, cilantro, and rice vinegar chopped salad I'd made earlier in the day, but hadn't sampled yet. 

3. I so much enjoyed watching The Card on Tuesday night that this evening I thought it would be fun to watch another classic British comedy. In the reading about movies I've done recently, several classic movie lovers have praised the work of David Lean. 

I decided to watch Lean's direction of Blithe Spirit (1945) and it was perfect as just the kind of snappily written (by Noel Coward) and superbly photographed and acted comic movie I was looking for. In particular, I loved Margaret Rutherford's performance as the eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, and I've decided that I'm going to see if I can rent or stream the four Miss Marple movies she starred in between 1961 and 1964.

Watching this supernatural farce and its hilarious complications brought back a memory. I might not have this 100% correct, but my memory tells me that back in about 1980, John, Barbara, my first wife, and I went to an outdoor performance of Blithe Spirit at the University of Oregon. I am almost positive that Jacquie Mcclure, whom I would later work with as an instructor at LCC, played the role of Madame Arcati. I hope it was Jacquie. I laughed and laughed and laughed during that production and I deeply want to believe that Jacquie, who died in 2012, was the actor who so energetically and absurdly made me laugh so hard that summer night. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-23-2022: Copper is Changing, Interrupted *Poetry Break*, Alec Guinness in *The Card* (1952)

 1. In the last several days, Copper, for the first time since he came into my life in February, 2021, wants to be physically in contact with me, especially when I'm lying down on the bed. Ever since Sunday night, my sleep has been slightly out of whack and today when I lay down to nap, Copper got close to me, purred as I put my hand on him. A day or two ago, I napped with my arm around Copper, holding him close to my side. I don't know what's changed, but now, if the three of us are in bed together, both Copper and Luna want to be very close to me and it gives us a new challenge to work out. 

2. At 7:00 tonight, I tuned into Bill Davie's Poetry Break. Bill started the night by reading from his ongoing project, "Old Manhood" poems and then moved to the mailbag and read selections from A.A. Milne, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin and others, all contributions from listeners to the program. Bill turned his attention to Tony Hoagland and James Welch and suddenly his face disappeared from my computer screen.

The power went out. 

We'd had a thunderstorm and some rain a bit earlier. I don't know if that had anything to do with losing our power for about forty minutes, but I do know I didn't get to see the last 15-20 minutes of Bill's show.

3. It had been a funny day today with power and the internet. 

This afternoon, I was over at criterion.com reading essays about movies and looking at several people's listings of their Top 10 Criterion movies -- I checked out Bill Hader, Alec Baldwin, Ken Jennings, and others by people I'd never heard of.

Then, suddenly, Criterion's website went down.

I soon discovered on Twitter that Criterion was down everywhere. 

Criterion's site got restored later and once our power was back, and having earlier read some articles at criterion.com about Alec Guinness's lengthy and varied acting career, I decided to watch another of the light and thoroughly entertaining comedies he made in the early 1950s.

Over the years I'd watched The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Last Holiday, and The Man in the White Suit, all light comedies featuring Guinness' genius for creating distinct and enjoyable characters and for  his light-footed physical comedy. I also watched his slightly darker comedy from 1958, The Horse's Mouth.

Tonight, I watched The Card (1952), another feathery and fun comedy. Guinness plays a young man, a card, who is determined by wit and some guile, to work his way out of his humble life as the son of a washerwoman and not only elevate his social status, but accrue wealth as well. It's a light-handed satire, but never pushes its viewers to think too seriously either about upward mobility or the British class system. It's also a love story, and I enjoyed seeing Petula Clark play a sweet supporting role in this movie. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-22-2022: Copper and Luna Enjoy the Living Room, Rescuing Baked Beans, An Anniversary Family Dinner

 1. For about four hours or so today, while Gibbs was being groomed, Copper and Luna got to be out in the living room and enjoy some of their favorite spots to lounge, sleep, and relax. I don't know how a cat's mind works, but their occasional squawks and occasional scratching on the inside of the closed Vizio room or bedroom door signals to me that they enjoy getting an occasional break from being closed off from the rest of the house and would like to come out more! 

2. My assignment for family dinner tonight was to make a batch of slow cooker baked beans I've brought to dinners before. When I've made this recipe before, I've followed the recipe and soaked dry beans overnight and then put the chopped onion, beans, water, molasses, brown sugar, and bacon in the slow cooker for about eight to nine hours.

But, alas, for this batch, I forgot to go buy a package of dry beans, so I used canned beans instead -- black beans and white kidney beans. I was slow getting going this morning as I recovered from the party at Renae and Dick's Sunday night, and it was past 1:00 or 1:30 before I got the ingredients gathered and combined in the slow cooker. I thought things would be all right because the beans didn't have to cook. Only the onion and bacon did.

I was wrong. 

I realized late in the afternoon that the onions were still crunchy, the bacon wasn't quite cooked, and the whole dish was way too liquid-y.

I tried to rescue my family dinner offering. 

I transferred the beans out of the slow cooker into a Dutch oven.

I turned up the heat, brought it to a boil, and then let the beans simmer, hoping that the liquid would evaporate and the onions and bacon would cook up. 

Dinner tonight was at 6:00.

Around 5:45, I determined that the bacon and onion had cooked up pretty well, but that I needed to get rid of liquid. 

So I got out our handy strainer, an oblong shaped basket at the end of a long handle and scooped the beans, onion, and bacon out of the Dutch oven and put them in the slow cooker. Once I was done scooping, I added some Dijon mustard to the beans, stirred them up, and transferred them to a serving bowl.

My rescue effort worked.

What did I learn today?

Give this dish plenty of time in the slow cooker, even if the beans come out of a can.

Use much less water when combining ingredients if the beans come out of a can.

Start preparing this dish earlier in the day. 

I should be more responsible about over serving myself gin on the eve of fixing this dish.

3. So, relieved, with the serving dish full of delicious beans in hand, I arrived at family dinner at Christy's.

Tonight was a special dinner. We gathered one day shy of Christy and Everett's 25th wedding anniversary. So, in honor of the occasion, we raised a toast to Everett (RIP) and Christy, sad that they didn't get to celebrate this milestone together, but happy that Everett and Christy shared so many years and so much happiness together. 

Our dinner was terrific. We led off with a lemon vodka cocktail accompanied by an oven-baked bacon and cracker appetizer. For the main meal, Christy fixed tasty barbecued chicken legs, I brought the beans, and Carol made a very tasty and unique ramen salad. For dessert, Molly brought Heath Klondike ice cream bars. 

We talked about a wide variety of topics tonight ranging from a local house fire to some thoughts about Christianity to gardening and solar lights to when Debbie worked at Mrs. Greenthumb's at the Spokane Sheraton (nearly 50 years ago) to The Godfather and Paramount+'s series, The Offer. 

We had a comfortable night on Christy's deck and we gave ourselves a lot to think about as we talked about all these different topics. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-21-2022: Fun Night with Dick and Renae and Mike, ZOOMing with Bill and Diane, *The Verdict* at Vizio University

 1. I had a superb day with friends today. I'll begin with the end of the day. Christy, Debbie, and I piled in the Sube and blasted over to the condos at the Morning Star Lodge to have dinner and drinks with Renae and Dick Costa. To our delight, Mike Pierce was also in the house. Upon entering, we were not only greeted with fun and lively company, but Dick and Renae made beer, gin and tonic, bourbon, and (I think) wine available for us and in the living room they had put out a generous spread of salami, cheese, apple slices, crackers, cheese spreads, and other delicious items to snack on. 

Debbie, Christy, and I dove into the gin and tonic. We all got comfortable around the snack table. Before long Dick and Renae heated up boneless chicken wings and Renae set out a very tasty salad.

And immediately, the yakkin' began. It was a fun night for origin stories. How in the world did Renae happen to come to Kellogg from North Dakota? How in the world did Debbie and I meet in Eugene and start messing around with each other? How did Glenn Exum play a part in Debbie's life when she was living in Glen Ellyn, far, far away from Mr. Exum's teacher life in Kellogg and his mountaineering life in Wyoming? We talked about accidents and surgeries and Kellogg history. We laughed. Our jaws dropped at hearing about stuff that happened in our lives. 

We had a grand time and, I'm sure, had we all been in our twenties again, we wouldn't have broken this party up until the wee hours of the morning.

But, we are in our sixties and seventies now and the party broke up some time between eleven and midnight (I think) and we made the very most of our hours of merriment together.

2. My other superb social time happened this afternoon on ZOOM. Bill, Diane, and I had a great time yakkin' about a wide variety of things. Bill is in the process of resurrecting and re-mixing Lunatic Cafe,  the first album he self-recorded nearly forty years ago on a four track recording machine he had at home. Back in late 1983 through the spring of 1984, I lived in my favorite of all apartments on Stevens Street, in Spokane, just below the Sacred Heart Medical Center. Bill also lived on the lower South Hill of Spokane and our conversation today about those Lunatic Cafe songs and the scene at Phil Eaton's restaurant, Henny's brought back some really fun memories of visiting Bill's apartment, hearing him perform at Henny's, remembering hearing Redeker play there, too, and how much the goodness of students, professors, and friends associated with Whitworth College at that time helped me enjoy much of my life while, at the same time, I was confused, confusing, overwhelmed, and haunted by difficulties unlike any I had ever experienced before.

We also talked about movies and what I'm experiencing and trying to teach myself through my efforts at Vizio University. Vizio University stimulates me, is expanding my movie viewing experience immeasurably, and has been one of my favorite undertakings in my retirement. I admit, though, I sometimes wish it wasn't such a solo effort. But, there's good news regarding enjoying movies with others. I think at some point, Bill, Diane, possibly other Basementeers, and I will all watch The Last Picture Show and jump on ZOOM to talk about how it's made, what it explores, what we think of the acting in it, and any number of other things. 

3. Late this morning, I decided I wanted to watch another courtroom drama and, for the first time in a few weeks, I watched a movie made more recently than the 1940s and 1950s!

Because Debbie and I repeatedly watch All the President's Men, my high regard for Jack Warden increases all the time. A few weeks ago, I was rummaging around on the World Wide Web, reminding myself of other work Jack Warden had done, and I remembered his role as Mickey Morrissey, mentor of and fellow attorney with an alcoholic lawyer named Frank Galvin, played by Paul Newman in the movie, The Verdict (1982). 

So, today, I watched The Verdict. I enjoyed watching Paul Newman at work. He brilliantly embodied the ways in which Frank Galvin is, at once, a self-destructive wreck of an attorney and also in possession of a deep sense of honor, justice, and rectitude. What's immature and self-defeating in his character often undermines his idealism and this movie became as much a trial of Frank Galvin's inward life as it was a courtroom drama. Jack Warden was superb as Mickey, the gruff, profane, world weary, and loyal friend and colleague of Frank Galvin. 

I'm leaving things out that I'm thinking about, but I'll add one more thing. I enjoyed observing what I thought was the influence of earlier film noir movies on the way certain moments in this movie were photographed. As we come to learn more about Laura Fischer, played exquisitely by Charlotte Rampling, a climactic moment unfolds and her face, at that moment, is half in shadow, half in light and this visual effect perfectly captures how she has appeared to be a light in Frank Galvin's life while at the same time she has kept a dark secret hidden from him in the shadowy regions of her soul. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-20-2022: This Old Dog Learns a New Trick, Mirth and Merriment at The Lounge, Patio Party

 1. I decided to venture into uncharted territory today. I went to YouTube and watched a video in which a patient woman clearly explained how to fold a fitted sheet. I've been doing my own laundry now for over forty years and every time I've taken a fitted sheet out of the drier, I've just made into a wad and stuffed it into a closet. Today, I followed the fitted sheet teacher's instructions and, although I didn't fold the sheet with the grace and beauty of the YouTube pro, I succeeded.

2. Around 4:00, Debbie and I headed up to the Inland Lounge. As time went by and as I enjoyed a couple bottles of the Champagne of Bottled Beer along with a couple shots of Pendleton's 1910 Rye Whisky with a few ice cubes, I had a great time yakkin' with a splendid bunch of people. I got to chew some fat with Cas.  Debbie and Julie C. launched into some serious gabbing. Brett F. came in for a beer and we did some first-rate yakkin'. Before long, Dick and Renae rolled in, just ahead of Mike P. and Julie Z. Dick called me "Gene Gene the Dancin' Machine" because he knew I'd joined my classmates in doing some fun dancing to Dirty Betty at our HillTop Inn reunion party. Harley B. told me stories about going off the road in his log truck years ago. Things really went into overdrive when Diane T. arrived and she and Debbie ordered some food from Wah Hing that came with an Hibachi grill. Fitz and DeAnne strolled in -- I didn't get to talk with them, but said farewell when it was time to leave. 

The mood in The Lounge was cheerful. People were uber enjoying one another. It was a great scene.

3. After our fun time at The Lounge drew to a close, Diane brought her dogs down to our house to see Gibbs. Christy joined us a little later and we had a great party on the patio. Diane took over the bartending duties and made Old Fashions just the way she likes them for herself, Debbie, and Christy and I enjoyed some Bulleit bourbon over ice with orange bitters. We had a great time yakkin' about all kinds of stuff, enjoying the dogs -- who behaved very well --, and feeling more and more comfortable by the minute as the sun descended and the air cooled down.  

I'm happy to report that the patio worked great for our party and that it's looking more and more all the time like we made a good move having this area redone in the back yard. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-19-2022: Debbie Returns to Kellogg, A New Salad, Minor Home "Repairs"

 1.  I didn't know what Debbie's plan were for leaving Portland and returning to Kellogg, but around 11:30 she texted me that she was on the road, heading east out of the general Troutdale area. Debbie wondered if I had make plans for dinner preparation. I hadn't. I asked if she had a request. She did: heat up salmon patties and serve with rice and a salad. 

2. I knew I had a cucumber on hand and decided to click around on the World Wide Web and look for a cucumber salad recipe that did not involve either tomatoes or lettuce. I went to the NYTimes cooking section and found just what I was looking for. The recipe called for thinly sliced cucumber, carrot, and apple, a couple of finely chopped garlic cloves, jalapeño peppers or red pepper flakes, cilantro, salt, pepper, and rice vinegar. So I combined the solid ingredients in a bowl and tossed them with rice vinegar. If I make this salad again, I'll use less red pepper flakes, but, fortunately, having a dinner that included white rice and salmon helped me cool down the salad's heat in my mouth.  It's a great salad, simple, flavorful, and, for me, unique. 

3. I spent some time cleaning up the house -- nothing too ambitious, but I definitely wanted to vacuum. The vacuum cleaner wasn't working very well, though, and I'm not terribly handy, but I sat down with the machine, as I had done a day ago, and figured some things out. Yesterday, I cleaned the filters. That helped. Today, I discovered some clogging and cleared out the fur, hair, threads, and other gunk that caused the clogging. In addition, the roller in two of the attachments had a bunch of threads wrapped around them that I cut, allowing the rollers to turn more freely. It's been a fairly decent week for me and small home "repairs". The pipes in the basement had begun to hum again when I flushed the toilet and I figured out how to make that stop. I had flubbed up the settings on the sprinkler system and with the help of a YouTube video learned what I'd done and straightened it out. 

These small accomplishments probably don't sound like much, but whenever I tackle a small home "repair" problem and succeed, it's very satisfying and it helps settle down the anxiety I feel when I decide to undertake one of these minor projects. 

 

Three Beautiful Things 08-18-2022: Debbie Hits the Road, Boxing and Film Noir: *The Set-Up* (1949), Music in the Park

 1. Debbie decided not to stay any longer in Eugene and called me to say she was on her way to Portland. She arrived, sent me a picture of the exterior of Meagan and Patrick's apartment and she'll decide later when to return to Kellogg.

2. Today's Vizio University curriculum continued my current preoccupation with film noir. The shady, or should I write, shadowy, world of boxing is a perfect subject for the film noir approach to making movies. So, I watched The Set-Up (1949). It's directed by Robert Wise and is about as different from his later, much more famous effort, The Sound of Music as two movies could be. The Set-Up takes place in a dark shadowy section of a place called Paradise City and takes us right into the corruption of this world of small time boxing as we enter a bar that is a gangster hangout, a seedy hotel where the movie's central figure, thirty-five year old washed up boxer, Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) and his wife (Audrey Totter) are staying, and into the grimy locker room and training room of the area where the movie's boxing matches take place.

I don't want to give away what happens in the movie, but I will reveal that, like High Noon, it takes place in real time. The movie runs about 70 minutes and so does the beginning, middle, and end of this story. It's beautifully photographed by Milton R. Krasner, whose work with light and shadow gave this movie its purgatorial atmosphere and underscored its conflicts between nobility and corruption.

3. Well, lo and behold, today was Thursday. Today when I drove over to the city park, unlike when I showed up a day early yesterday, people were there, booths were set up, and Carol and Paul and Joy Persoon were making music. Carol and Paul and Joy put together a program of what (I think) they called, "Music Through the Decades" and they sang a variety of standards ranging from "Moon River" to "Ring of Fire" to "Sentimental Journey". 

The music was wonderful, but I have to say that even more pleasing to me was how nicely the park had cooled off and how shaded it was. I went over for about the last hour of music because I didn't want to be out in the heat and I had worried about Carol, Paul, and Joy being out in this hot weather for over two hours performing. Good news! They were fine. I talked with Carol and Joy afterward and they weren't red or flushed and so my concerns came to nothing. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-17-2022: Hey! It's Wednesday! Not Thursday!, "Plans" Change,Vizio U: Izzy's Superb Videos and *Witness for the Prosecution*

1. I'm not sure why I was confused about the day of the week today. I thought today was Thursday. Debbie had planned to leave Eugene on Thursday and drive to Portland. I'd been waiting throughout the day for a text message from Debbie, hoping to find out she arrived at Patrick and Meagan's apartment. Then she called me about a matter unrelated to her trip to Portland and I realized it was Wednesday. 

Well, I realized it for a short while because later I texted Carol to say I wouldn't be at the park to hear her, Paul, Molly, and friends perform until around 6:15 or 6:30 because of the heat. Then, I drove over to the park at around 6:15 and I was puzzled that no one was there. I wondered if the Music in the Park had been canceled because of heat, but that didn't seem right, and then suddenly I remembered that when I talked with Debbie earlier, we'd agreed that it was Wednesday, not Thursday. Not only that, but I had put the empty garbage can away when I took the Sube out of the garage and I do that on Wednesday.

2. Now, I do think I got this right: Debbie had planned to leave Eugene on Thursday, spend time with Patrick and Meagan, and then drive to Kellogg on a later day. Now she's contemplating staying in Eugene a bit longer. When Debbie texted me that she might delay her return, I responded, "Sounds good. You have my full support." It's really a good thing that we are used to making decisions and then changing them on the spur of the moment, used to letting the spirit rather than a strict adherence to the calendar guide us when we travel, make "plans", and so on. 

3. I returned home after my comical drive to the park.

Earlier in the day, over at Vizio University, I had watched YouTube videos on the Be Kind Rewind channel. The videos on this channel are superb as the creator of these presentations, Izzy, explores different women in the movies and looks at different controversies that have arisen in movie history. Today I watched her splendid exploration of Anne Bancroft's career up to the moment she won the Best Actress Oscar for Miracle Worker. When the ceremony took place, Bancroft was unable to attend. She was acting in Mother Courage and her Children and so, controversially, Joan Crawford accepted the award on her behalf. Crawford had NOT been nominated that year for her performance in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, but her co-star, Bette Davis, had. It meant Crawford got to go to the podium and receive a statue and Davis, who felt robbed, didn't.

So, it makes sense that the Anne Bancroft video was Part I of a two part series exploring in depth to what degree a feud actually existed between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Part II is a superb survey of both women's careers, the different approaches they took in advancing their careers, and is as much an examination of newspaper stories, some kind of true, many exaggerated, about their relationship. Izzy made this video after the mini-series Feud came out and makes it a point to help her viewers see where Feud didn't always portray things as they actually happened.

I also watched Izzy's superb examination of the career of Ruth Gordon, with special emphasis on her performance in Rosemary's Baby. Ruth Gordon won her first Oscar as the Best Supporting Actress and Izzy's treatment of her decades of acting and screenwriting that preceded her winning this award was fascinating. In addition (thank you Izzy), the video also included Ruth Gordon's performance after Rosemary's Baby as Maude in Harold and Maude, a heartwarming coda to the rest of the video.

I got home from my mistaken drive to the park and decided I was in the mood for another black and white courtroom drama, having watched Anatomy of a Murder, on Sunday.

To my delight, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) is an offering on Amazon Prime and I called it up and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Two performances especially entertained me. Charles Laughton is superb as the arrogant bannister recovering from a heart attack. He's the defense attorney in the trial. I don't remember ever seeing Marlene Dietrich in a movie until today and I found the range of her performance as the wife of the defendant staggeringly brilliant. 

Is this movie famous for its many surprises and twists and turns in the plot? 

I don't know. 

If it's not, I think it should be! 

Whoa! 

Three Beautiful Things 08-16-2022: Giving in to Copper, Matinee at the Dirty Dog Saloon, I Wasn't All There

 1. Ha! So when Gibbs and I retire for the night, I close the bedroom door and then Copper and Luna can spend time in the living room and kitchen as well as the Vizio room. Copper and Luna are much happier when they have access to the bedroom and they'll have access again when Debbie returns from Eugene in the next few/several days. 

At 4 a.m. this morning, Copper started clawing at the bedroom door, wanting in. 

I made a snap decision. 

I got up, fixed myself coffee, and got my day started in the usual way with word puzzles and blogging and Luna, Copper, and I kept each other company for two or three hours before it came time to let Gibbs out of the bedroom.

I don't do well over the course of a day on so little sleep, so around noon or so, I fell into a nap-coma. 

2. When I woke up from my deep sleep, I received a text message invitation from Cas to go up to the Dirty Dog Saloon for a beer or two (or four). The Dirty Dog definitely had a neighborhood bar vibe this afternoon. Several people came and went, the conversations were quiet, and people were friendly. It was relaxing and enjoyable. I don't think I'd ever been to the Dirty Dog mid-afternoon and it worked for me. 

3. I returned home and ate all the pasta salad that was left from family dinner last night and tuned in late to Bill Davie's weekly live broadcast of Poetry Break. I wasn't as attentive after my trip to the Dirty Dog as I normally would be so I'm thinking that at some point I'm going to go back and listen to this show in its entirety, free of the after effects of matinee beer drinking at the Dirty Dog. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-15-2022: Patio Ready for Family Dinner, All-Class Reunion Meeting, Light Family Dinner in the Cool Air

1. Ron came over this afternoon and put the finishing touches on the patio and he declared the concrete sufficiently cured for us to put our patio furniture back on it.  He and I did just that. 

I had volunteered to host family dinner tonight so we could "break in" the patio and I was elated with Ron's assessment that the patio was party ready.

2. At 6:30 tonight, Carol, Paul, Christy, and I attended the August meeting of the All-Class Reunion general committee. Turnout for previous meetings hadn't been good. I was part of that problem. I hadn't been to one of these meetings while working on the KHS Class of '72 50 year reunion. If more people didn't step forward tonight to help out, chances are good the 2023 KHS All-Class Reunion would have been canceled. 

To everyone's delight and relief, over twenty-five people attended tonight's meeting. Lori Sawyer called the meeting to order and before long we marched through the agenda, mostly focusing on calling for volunteers to head up different committees.

As a result, most of the committees have a chair. A tentative schedule for reunion events is taking shape. 

The meeting was a great success and we'll be getting the word out that the All-Class Reunion will happen on July 21, 22, and 23, 2023.

3. Christy, Carol, and Paul came over to the new patio after the meeting. I mixed some cocktails. Gibbs, Riley, and Cleo played in the yard. I had set up a card table and it was buffet central. I set out cheese, crackers, cashews, and apple slices along with a pasta salad. I combined parts of the Persian tomato/cucumber salad recipe I made last Monday with parts of the recipe Tomato Bruschetta Sauce pasta dish I made two weeks ago and created a hybrid pasta salad. Carol and Paul brought a chuck roast with taco seasoning and tortillas along with condiments and I set out a bottle of red and one of white wine.  For dessert, Christy brought really delicious Haagen Dazs ice cream bars. 

The air had cooled considerably as we dug into our meal, making it very comfortable to be out on the patio. We had a lot to talk about having just been to the reunion meeting. We also discussed some family and Kellogg history and because Carol and Paul had just watched The Godfather, we talked about what a sensational movie it is. 

We even talked a little bit about my favorite movie and television actor, Eve Arden. I confessed my admiration for her work and the affection I have felt for her that reaches back over sixty years. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-14-2022: Adding Some Distance, Debbie Had Fun in Oakridge, *Anatomy of a Murder* Unsettled Me

1. Gibbs and I added some distance to our morning walk today -- not a lot -- but we walked back to the bottom of the hill along Mission Ave and made out way to the 4-way stop just south of the hospital. We crossed the street, walked in front of Subway, Sam's, and the nursing home and when we got as far as the church, we crossed the street and returned home. We'll keep doing this, especially in the cool of the morning -- adding steps, adding distance. Our warmer evening walks will be shorter. 

2. It heartened me to talk with Debbie this afternoon and learn she had fun performing with her friends at the 3 Legged Crane in Oakridge. Some kind of a street fair was going on and the great swamp rock band Etouffe was playing outside, drawing most of the people who were out and about, but Debbie seemed unaffected by playing for a small audience in the pub. She got to make music. She did it with longtime friends. She had fun. It was all good.

3. The movie Anatomy of a Murder (1959) runs for about two hours and forty-five minutes. It's been on my mind for a few weeks, and I've been waiting for just the right afternoon to watch it. I tend to watch shorter movies in the evening. 

So, my studies at Vizio University broadened and deepened today. For me, it wasn't really wondering how the trial that dominated this story would turn out that I found absorbing. No, it was enjoying James Stewart develop his character, attorney Paul Biegler, and the relationships that developed between Biegler and his associate, the capable alcoholic attorney, Parnell McCarthy (played by Arthur O'Connell), the killer he defended, Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara), and the killer's wife, Laura (Lee Remick). 

As a bonus, Paul Biegler's secretary, Maida Rutledge was played loyally, sardonically, intelligently, and perfectly by my favorite, Eve Arden! I swear, no one in the world of movies can deliver lines better than Eve Arden. I loved every second she was on screen and I loved listening to her every word.

The movie's location is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the district attorney feels a bit overwhelmed prosecuting this case on his own, especially against Paul Biegler who is the ex-DA, so he recruits an attorney, Claude Dancer, played brilliantly by George C. Scott, to help him.

Shot masterfully in black and white, accompanied by a superb musical score performed by Duke Ellington and his band, this movie also features a bold screenplay that not only infused its grave subject matter with warmth and humor, it broke the codes of decency that had ruled movies for the previous twenty-five years or so and used words unheard in movies: rape, panties, bitch, sperm, and others, all at the insistence of director Otto Preminger, and the effect was strong, not only confronting its audience with the violence of rape, but also giving the audience, in my opinion, a sense of relief that this story would not tiptoe around the gravity of what this case involved by sanitizing the language. 

Lastly, I thought this movie was morally and ethically ambiguous. I found myself rooting for Paul Biegler in his defense of Lt. Manion, and, in the process,  caught myself question whether I really wanted to  root for a confessed murderer to be found not guilty. Paul Biegler was a fascinating character. Underneath his aw shucks country lawyer facade was a drive to win this case at all costs and the movie forced me to contemplate how many of Biegler's tactics were ethical and made me wonder just what kind of ethics govern a courtroom and a murder case. 

That I was torn by what played out morally and ethically in this movie made it all the more compelling and enjoyable. The questions the movie raised for me never got answered and it left me feeling just what my day to day life always leaves me feeling: we live in an ambiguous world where it's not always clear whether well-defined principles of right and wrong exist -- or, if they do, how much power those principles really have. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-13-2022: Troxes Depart, Debbie Performs in Oakridge, *In a Lonely Place* Is a Riveting Movie

 1. The Trox's elderly dog Willy stayed upstairs with the Troxstar and Marla last night and it was difficult for him to get up and down the stairs, but he was a champ and did so with human help. He was ready to do his morning business at 5:30 this morning, so we all got up. I fixed coffee, we had some excellent early morning conversation,  and the Troxes pondered travel routes. The Troxstar and Marla ate some granola and yogurt and hit the road before eight o'clock on their way to Havre, MT. Later in the day, the Troxstar texted me that they arrived in Havre and were tired. I would be, too, after such an early start to the day. 

2. In other big news of the day, Debbie joined musical forces this evening with Peter Wilde, Laura Kemp, Katie Henry, Jeremy Wegner, and Tanya Bunson at the 3 Legged Crane in Oakridge, OR. I've heard two short videos and I've seen a handful of pictures. It sure looks like it was a good night.  I love the music Debbie and her friends make and I have great memories connected with the 3 Legged Crane (formerly the Brewers Union, Local 180). Man. I would have loved to have been in the house.

3. I had quite a stunning experience late this afternoon with Luna clinging to me in the Vizio room at Vizio University. I rented another film noir movie, one that I've read and heard much mention of over the last couple of weeks or so. In a Lonely Place (1950) features Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, Bogart as a Hollywood screenwriter and Grahame as a rarely hired actor who has recently broken up with a wealthy lover.

On the face of it, the story centers around solving the murder of a woman who worked as a hat clerk at a restaurant frequented by Dixon Steele, Bogart's character. The woman, named Mildred Atkinson (played by Martha Stewart -- not the Living Martha Stewart), agrees to come to Dixon Steele's apartment to tell him the story of a book he's been hired to turn into a screen play. He doesn't want to read it, and she had just finished it. Steele cuts short her storytelling visit out of boredom and gives her money to catch a ride home at a nearby taxi stand. Soon afterward, Mildred Atkinson is found dead, having been strangled and dumped from a car. 

Police immediately suspect Dixon Steele of the murder, but the Gloria Grahame character (Laurel Gray) provides Steele with an alibi, and, in so doing, spark of attraction ignites between her and Steele.

I won't say how this murder case works out, but I will say that the movie develops into a study of Dixon Steele and Laurel Gray, both complex characters superbly played by Bogart and Grahame. In keeping with the shadowy look of the movie, In a Lonely Place examines the dark recesses of both Dixon Steele's and Laurel Gray's psyches, their insecurities, fears, wells of anger, suspicions, even paranoia. As his name suggests, Steele is, to a degree, a hardened character, a character of limited emotional breadth or depth. And, like the color gray, Laurel Gray is, at times ambiguous, difficult to read, caught between the darkness of her world and her yearnings for light. 

It's a brilliant movie, sharply written, superbly photographed, and astutely acted. Personally, I've never seen Bogart play a role with so much complexity.  I enjoyed the great range of his performance. This movie introduced me to Gloria Grahame and her work in this movie staggered me. Her work is subtle, intelligent, alive to the demands of each moment of the story, and affecting. I can see why the film experts I've read and listened to admire her so fully. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-12-2022: Concrete Patio, Preparing for the Troxes, A Relaxing Evening with the Troxes BONUS: A Limerick by Stu

1.  Huge day here at the little house on Little Cameron!

Ron and some of his guys arrived around 7:30 a.m. and further prepped the patio area for the cement that arrived in a cement mixer later in the morning. More of Ron's guys arrived and they moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of wet concrete to the back yard and shoveled one load after another into the area and worked for at least a couple of hours, or even more, getting it smoothed out and getting the drainage figured out.

2. While Ron and his crew worked on the patio, the Troxstar and Marla and their aged dog Willy headed out of Eugene early this morning, bound for Kellogg to spend the night with Gibbs, Luna, Copper, and me before continuing their cross-country trip to Massachusetts and eventually Maine.

I prepared for their arrival in all the usual ways: I laundered the sheets on their bed and made it; I vacuumed; I spiffed up the bathroom; I went to Yoke's and bought groceries and a six pack of backup beer in case we wanted more than the Troxstar himself was bringing. 

I put together a tray of cheese and lunchmeat, cut up a loaf of sourdough bread, made pasta with Tomato Bruschetta Sauce, and set out pickles, almonds, celery, and carrots. I hoped the Troxes would find light, refrigerated food satisfying after driving all day. 

They did.

3. I was very happy to see the Troxes pull into the driveway. I was slightly concerned about how Gibbs would respond to having people he doesn't know visiting, especially people with a dog.

Gibbs was a champ. 

He didn't go bonkers. He didn't bark his head off. He immediately accepted Willy and didn't hassle him, didn't try to get him to play, and didn't bark at him. It was as if Gibbs was aware of Willy's age and infirmities and practiced what we humans would call respect for one's elder.

Gibbs loved the Troxstar and Marla. He leapt onto the couch to be with them, loved the affection they shared with him, and even lay on his perch at the window so that he could do what he does with Debbie and press himself against both the Troxstar's and Marla's neck and shoulders.

Before leaving Eugene, the Troxstar wondered if he could bring any beer from Eugene to Kellogg -- like, would I like him to bring a growler of Hammerhead. I said that Hammerhead completes me and that a growler would be awesome. I was fired up to be drinking Hammerhead in Kellogg again -- that was twice in one month thanks to Oregon friends -- and when we finished the growler, the Troxstar drank a Heidelberg and I twisted the cap off of the home-brew the Troxstar had made and brought.

He purchased a book with a recipe for Rogue's Dead Guy Ale and I was very impressed with how good his home-brew tasted. I didn't expect it to be quite as malty as it is and that was a welcome surprise. 

Marla, the Troxstar, and I yakked about any number of things until around 9:00. Marla was ready at that point to call it a night and the Troxstar wanted to experience the Vizio room, so I cleaned out Luna and Copper's litter pan, moved their fish oily wet food to the bedroom, where the cats were hanging out, and brought in a second chair.

The Troxstar wondered if I'd ever watched the fast-paced, Cockney, bawdy, raunchy, booze-fueled Victorian copper mini-series The Year of the Rabbit.

I hadn't.

So we watched two episodes and, thanks in part to the beer, I was never completely sure what was going on, but I was intrigued by the pace, editing, earthiness, and innovation of the program and enjoyed watching it before we all called it a night and hit the hay. 

It brought a splendid evening to a close. 

Here's a limerick by Stu: 

Starboard refers to the right.  

Same as green, if on water at night. 

Think “port” though instead, 

Left on water shows red. 

And your “paw” from the south if you fight. 

 International Lefthander’s Day.

 

Three Beautiful Things 08-11-2022: Listening to John Sayles, Street Photography and *The Naked City*, Criterion Channel Extras

1. Today was one of my favorite days so far at Vizio University, one of my best ever days on the Criterion Channel. The other day, when talking with Bill and Diane about Matewan and Harlan County, USA, I noticed that Criterion Channel had posted a 6-7 minute interview with John Sayles about Harlan County, USA. I listened to Sayles today. I'd heard him and his partner, Maggie Renzi, talk about Matewan after a screening of it at the American Film Institute theater in Silver Spring, MD. I don't remember if Sayles or Renzi made reference to Harlan County, USA that night, but they sure could have.

All I can say about the Sayles' comments is that in a very short span of time he articulated precisely what makes Barbara Kopple's documentary such a stunning and vital movie and he distilled into a few sentences what makes any well made documentary such a thrilling experience to watch. 

2. When I lived in and had more ready access to more densely populated places like Eugene, Portland, New York City, and Washington D.C., I loved giving street photography a whirl. 

Today, I watched The Naked City (1948), a police procedural filmed very much in the style of the Italian Neo-Realists. Very little of the movie was shot in a studio. The vast majority of the movie's shots were street photographs, filmed on location in a wide variety of places in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. Watching this movie reminded me of street films I watched at MOMA in Manhattan back in 2019 and at one of the Washington, DC museums back in 2012. 

The Naked City made me think that this is what an Law and Order would look like if filmed around 1947 and if the entire episode were devoted to work of the detectives. Like the television show, The Naked City, using an approach never tried before over the course of a 90+ minutes movie, took its viewers into an actual tenement building, the real city morgue, an Astoria row house, Manhattan apartments, a boxing gym and many other places rarely, if ever, seen on a movie screen. Viewers jumped rope with children, sat at diner counters, visited any number of businesses, jumped into the East River, shopped at markets, and participated in any number of everyday aspects of New York City life.

The cinematography in The Naked City thrilled me. All of these street scenes, all of the movie's street photography, gave the murder mystery the movie's plot focuses on depth and excitement. 

3. After finishing the movie, I listen to two very different talks on video in the Criterion Channel collection by James Sanders and Dana Polan and a short documentary film looking at the making of The Naked City by Bruce Goldstein's. I was particularly fascinated by Sanders. He partnered with Ric Burns in the making of the great documentary series, New York, and his grasp of the city's geography, architecture, and history was stimulating and illuminating. Polan presented a reading of the movie focused largely on the tension between the filmmakers' progressive political vision and their more conservative exploration of law and order and masculinity in the movie. Goldstein's short documentary was a tour of many of the locations featured in the movie, how they have and haven't changed, and included some fun behind the scenes stories about the making of The Naked City.

Three Beautiful Things 08-10-2022: Exercising Gibbs, I Watched *Mildred Pierce*, *Adventures in Moviegoing* on The Criterion Channel

1. I'm happy to report that walking Gibbs in the morning and again later in the day is good for both of us. The walks help Gibbs be more settled in the house and it seems much less urgent for him to go out back and do his business or to run around. The best part, for me, and possibly our neighbors (who do not complain, by the way), is that Gibbs isn't barking his head off in the back yard and isn't engaging in bark-a-thons with other neighboring dogs. I welcome things being quieter and it helps me be more accepting of Gibbs barking at the mail deliverer and at passersby. Here's the thing, though: if Gibbs sacks out for a while after going on a walk, he's much less likely to notice the people (and their dogs!) walking in front of the house. 

2. I returned to Vizio University today and watched Mildred Pierce (1945). After it ended and after I read some other people's reflections on the movie, including a very insightful essay that Imogen Sara Smith wrote for Criterion, I thought a lot about how much I enjoy movies that bend and go outside genre expectations. The look, the lighting, the shadows, the ubiquitous darkness of Mildred Pierce and the fact that it's a murder story all place this movie squarely in the world of film noir. The genius of Mildred Pierce, though, is that it's a story about a woman's determination to succeed on her own in the world of business, without a man, and it's a story about a mother's devotion to her daughters, hardly what one would expect in a film noir. In addition, Mildred Pierce explores social class, upward mobility, the cost of ambition, and the hard-boiled realities of the world of business. 

Mildred Pierce does not feature, like so many noir movies, a hard-boiled detective. The mendacious femme fatale of this story is a surprise, a twist in the story I don't remember seeing in any other noir movies.

Joan Crawford plays the role of Mildred Pierce beautifully. The role demands that we see Mildred Pierce as steely in her resolve, unrelenting in her devotion to her daughters, vulnerable, a complex portrayal of a strong woman, but flawed. It's the first time I've watched Joan Crawford in a movie and her performance staggered me with its intelligence, depth, and many dimensions.

The movie also featured Eve Arden in a supporting role. I've loved Eve Arden ever since I was a little kid and watched her on the television series Our Miss Brooks (I had to have watched it in reruns after it went off the air in 1956) and in another show, The Mothers-in-Law. Eve Arden's wit and delivery, her flawless sense of comic timing, and her deep voice have always attracted me to her and made me laugh. I loved her in Mildred Pierce in her role as Mildred's original business mentor and then her business manager. I only wished she'd been on screen even more than she was.

3.  One of my favorite features of subscribing to The Criterion Channel is watching all the different people interviewed about their experience with loving movies and listening to their comments on a handful of their favorite films from the Criterion Collection. The series is called Adventures in Moviegoing. 

Tonight I listened to the entire interview with Sofia Coppola and listened to her talk about a handful of movies and then I listened to Guillermo del Toro and the brothers Josh and Bennie Safdie talk about favorite movies of theirs. I was particularly interested in what del Toro had to say about Blood Simple and the Safdie brothers' comments on The Naked City and In a Lonely Place convinced me that these will be the next two movies I'll watch at Vizio University. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-09-2022: Walking Gibbs, Afternoon in CdA, Bill Davie Reads Gary Snyder

 1. Gibbs can be energetic, especially in the morning. With insistent barking, he demands to have someone (right now, me!) throw one of his toys and he retrieves it, brings it back, and this goes on for a while. Gibbs can also be barky in the back yard, which, to me, is a problem if he goes out as early as 6:00 a.m. to do his business. 

I decided to find out today if taking Gibbs for a walk, first thing, before I do anything else, might help tire him out a little bit and give him a chance to take care of his business somewhere other than the back yard. In fact, this morning, I walked him twice, once before my usual morning routine (coffee, word puzzles, blogging) and again afterward. 

This morning walking is a good idea both for Gibbs and me and my guess is that as Gibbs and I develop this routine, our walks will get longer over time and I'll get back to increasing my number of steps per day. 

2. I've had a personal business situation hanging over my head for a while and after much deliberation combined with some procrastination, I initiated a process today that, I hope, will begin to take care of it. 

Once I did all I could with that, I leapt in the Sube and drove to CdA to take care of a few things. 

I dropped off an item to be returned to Amazon at the UPS Store. I used a card entitling me to a free car wash at Hippo and spiffed up the exterior of the Sube. I went to Supercuts and got a hair cut. 

I then buzzed over to Daft Badger and ordered a pint of Mosaic IPA, a single hop beer. I ordered the slow cooked pork taco lunch special of the week and it came with a bowl of chicken and black bean soup, seasoned Southwest style. I was the only patron sitting at the bar and as I finished my lunch, one of the servers, Mark, struck up a conversation and we talked about how both us happened to land in North Idaho in the past few years and about other places we've lived. He was a great guy and our conversation made a satisfying lunch even more enjoyable. 

After lunch, I decided to see how things were over at Outpost, formerly known as Slate Creek. I like this taproom a lot, primarily because it's small, neighborly, and draws people it's fun to listen to talk to each other. I ordered one of Outpost's own beers, an IPA, and, I'm sorry to say, it was disappointing. This one less than stellar beer, however, would not keep me from coming back. Their guest taps were awesome, the environment of the Outpost was enjoyable, and I find the place very relaxing.

I finished my beer, buzzed up to Costco, filled my gas tank, and bought a few food items and headed on back to Kellogg, bringing a low key, uneventful, but very satisfying trip to CdA to a close. 

3. Back home, I got settled in, and soon Bill Davie's live broadcast of Poetry Break came on Facebook. Early on, Bill read a favorite poet of mine, Lisel Mueller, and after reading some of his own work, he focused on Gary Snyder for most of the program's hour.

Bill talked a bit about Gary Snyder giving a reading, in 1983, at Spokane's Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC). 

I went to that reading. Snyder had just published his book called Axe Handles and I remember the poem "Axe Handles" having a strong impact on me that night. My memory of what month that reading took place is blurry to me and I'd love to find out. It would help me clarify whom I attended that reading with. Mostly I remember Snyder's quiet command of the room and that his reading attracted more people I thought of as living close to the land than I'd ever seen in one place at one time in Spokane. I loved it. It was one of the few times when I was in Spokane between 1982-84 that I felt like I was back in Eugene and I remember being uplifted by that feeling. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-08-2022: New Windshield, Persian Cucumber Tomato Salad, Family /Molly's Birthday Dinner

 1. Debbie and I decided not to live any longer with the cracks in the Sube's windshield and today was the big day to have the windshield replaced at Shoshone Glass. I dropped off the car and walked to The Beanery (formerly the Bean) and relaxed with a cup of coffee and a plain toasted bagel with cream cheese. After lounging for a while, I strolled over to Yoke's, picked up my medicine, and sat for a while in the Yoke's dining area and read a copy of The Inlander. I decided to saunter back to Shoshone Glass about twenty minutes earlier than when I thought the car would be ready and, lo and behold, the car was ready early. Awesome! I paid up and drove home. 

2. Back home, I looked up the recipe Carol assigned to me for tonight's family/Molly's birthday dinner. My job was to make a Persian salad and I realized that it's just the kind of salad I most enjoy eating, but that I rarely think to make. All it required of me was to chop up a couple of cucumbers and a few green onions (the recipe calls for red onion, but for family dinner the only raw onion we use is green). The recipe also called for a pound of tomatoes. Well, several years ago I read a Cook's review of canned diced tomatoes that freed me up because it said that when fresh tomatoes aren't that good from the store, canned tomatoes are better. So, instead of buying fresh (possibly tasteless) tomatoes, I drained a can of dice tomatoes. 

To the tomatoes, cucumbers, and green onion I added fresh chopped herbs: cilantro, basil, and mint. Suddenly it occurred to me that oranges might work in this salad and I did a little reading and found recipes for salads from Morocco that combine tomatoes and oranges. All right! I decided I'd try it out and peeled two oranges and cut the segments in half and added them. 

I let these ingredients sit in the fridge for a couple of hours and just before leaving the house to go to Carol and Paul's, I made the vinaigrette. It was ultra simple, the juice of two limes and some olive oil with salt and pepper. I put the vinaigrette on the salad when I arrived at Carol and Paul's. 

I'm happy to report that everyone enjoyed the salad and that my decisions to used canned tomatoes and to include oranges both were successful. 

3. Tonight was family dinner and Molly's birthday. When I arrived, Carol, Paul, Christy, and Molly were seated on the patio under the protective parachute and a cooling slushy style lime mojito was in a glass at my place at the table. Carol also put together a platter of crackers served with spinach and artichoke dip.

We all settled into conversation as Paul prepared our meal, delicious thin strips of London broil and grilled zucchini and summer squash discs. We served up our plates, chose from between Pinot Gris or Pinotage wine, and dug in. The thin slices of meat, tender vegetables, and the salad were, to my taste, perfect hot weather food. Everything was light and very flavorful. 

Molly opened her birthday gifts and then we enjoyed the chocolate cake Christy baked for Molly's birthday. I so hoped the cake would be feathery and more semi-sweet than sugary sweet and, WOW!, it was. I loved how, at the end of this meal, I felt comfortable and satisfied because the food wasn't rich or creamy, but light and refreshing and the cake rounded out our dinner superbly. 

I tend not to eat much during heat waves and this meal fit perfectly with my hot weather culinary desires. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-07-2022: Talking About Work on ZOOM, Enjoying Speech Patterns Not My Own, Another Scorsese Documentary

1. Bridgit, Diane, Bill and I talked about a lot of different topics today in our ZOOM meeting. Diane is very happy already as a newly retired person especially since she has more time and energy to have fun cooking. I was fascinated to learn (or learn again) that Diane and Bill both work two days a week at a naturopathic practice fairly near where they live, helping out the two doctors with checking in patients and doing clerical work. Diane is a highly talented organizer and is helping the two doctors get their business running more smoothly. 

Bridgit updated us on how the early days of her challenging new job as a supervisor are going and it turns out that, more than she originally knew, she got hired into a situation that needs repair and so she will be exercising her talents as a fixer. 

Talking about work and jobs, including the news that Debbie accepted a position at Pinehurst Elementary, got us talking about labor unions and movies about labor. Diane played a five minute clip from John Sayles' 1987 movie, Matewan, featuring Chris Cooper's monologue to his fellow miners about the merits of union organizing. Afterward, I talked up the great 1976 documentary, Harlan County, USA and mentioned that on the Criterion Channel catalog there's a short interview with John Sayles talking about Harlan County, USA.

2. I didn't come into our ZOOM time together expecting to defend the habit of speech I began to notice over thirty years ago in which people speak declarative sentences with their voices rising up near the sentence's end, as if they were asking a question. Diane played a video of Taylor Mali performing a poem that urges people (I'd say especially young people) to speak declaratively, not to use that upswing, as if the upswing suggested a lack of confidence or self-doubt or a lack of conviction or certainty. 

From the get go, starting, I think, either in my early days teaching at LCC or possibly when I was involved in an activist group back in the mid-1980s, I enjoyed hearing this way of speaking -- and still do -- even though I don't practice it. Others I worked with didn't enjoy it -- in fact, it grated on some of my colleagues. I don't know, maybe I related this speaking sentences as if they were questions to being around young people at WOW Hall and I associated this practice with jam band music. I think my enjoyment had to do with my affection for my students and that I enjoyed their ways of doing things that were theirs, not mine, and I decided to let it make me happy. 

Hard to say. But it was fun today when this came up and that poem actually triggered a lot of great memories of teaching, working with a lot of people younger than me in the classroom and the theater, and, of course, all those shows at WOW Hall.

3. For ZOOMing today, I mixed myself a couple of fresh squeezed tangerine juice and gin screwdrivers. When we ended our discussion, I needed some time to let the effects of the gin wear off. Once I felt more clear-headed again, I started watching another Martin Scorsese documentary. I've already watched his movie about the impact Italian movies had on him as a young man, but he was watching movies made in the USA, too, and in 1995 he released a documentary about three hours long entitled, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies.

I found this movie over at Internet Archives and, as I might have expected, in the early part of the movie I watched tonight, Scorsese discusses and shows clips from a variety of movies from his youth that I'm unfamiliar with. It's time to get out my Vizio University notebook and start jotting down more titles! 

More important than the titles, though, are Scorsese's comments about what excited him about these movies -- and it wasn't just the story. From an early age, Scorsese was highly receptive to panorama, vivid colors, how directors and cinematographers framed different shots, and how all of these more technical aspects of the movie helped tell the picture's story. 

As I listen to Scorsese talk about, say, the vivid colors in King Vidor's western, Duel in the Sun (and others), my mind travels frequently to Scorsese's period movie, Age of Innocence (1993). As I remember, Age of Innocence opens in an opera house during a production of an opera. In listening to Scorsese talk about movies, he often refers to movies featuring bold colors and heightened passions as being "operatic" and I remember as Age of Innocence opened in the plush theater with wealthy New Yorkers dressed in spectacular costumes and the camera's motion intensified the action on the stage that I found the pageantry on the screen more arresting than the story that was developing. Now, as I listen to Scorsese talk about movies he loved in his youth, I'm seeing how the ways he was struck dumb by cinematic pageantry clearly influenced the kinds of visual effects he brought into being as a director. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-06-2022: I Watched *Out of the Past* Twice, Returning to *Visions of Light*, The Copper-Luna-Gibbs Challenge!

1. Late Friday evening, I started to watch the film noir classic movie, Out of the Past (1947). I got about half way into it before falling asleep and so I picked it up again this morning. Especially in the second half of the movie, with several characters double and triple (at least) crossing each other, the plot gets convoluted (not unusual in film noir) and when the movie concluded, I decided to watch it a second time right away and see if I could sort it all out better. 

I did! I admired how this movie portrayed murkiness, the darkness of deception and greed, how the evil in this movie created a vortex next to impossible for its characters to escape.

In fact, similar to other movies on the Vizio University screening list these past couple of weeks (The Gunfighter, High Noon, High Sierra), Out of the Past tells a story about the inescapability of the past, exploring the troubling ways in which the past continues to live on in the present and shape the future.  The past is never over. It's never behind us. There are no fresh starts. In this movie, Robert Mitchum plays a private detective who entangles himself in a job for a gambling kingpin (played by Kirk Douglas) and, try as he might, to free himself from the work he did for this ruthless operator, he can't.  I'll leave it at that except to say that Mitchum's original job for the Kirk Douglas character was to track down a woman who had shot him and stolen money from him. Mitchum's character finds her (she's played superbly by Jane Greer), they become physically (romantically?) involved, and it grows into another entanglement that he tries to escape. 

2. These black and white film noir movies I've been watching are gorgeously photographed. The cinematographers in these movies create interplay between light and shadow that correlates to the murky situations of these movies, the way moral light and dark intersect, the way that we, as viewers, can feel we've been relegated to the shadows of understanding, especially when we aren't at all sure we know exactly what's going on.

Last week, one of my favorite movies about filmmaking arrived on my front porch. I ordered Visions of Light, a documentary produced by the American Film Institute that came out in 1992 and explores the history and evolution of cinematography from 1895-1990. 

I had watched this documentary multiple times before it landed on my front porch, but it had been a few years. It's a brilliant movie, especially for someone like me. I have a long history of watching movies as if they were works of literature, as if they were novels, and I need all the educating I can find to help me watch movies as works of photography (and sound).  I need help appreciating not only story structure and character development and the questions about life that arise out of these stories, but also how movies are shot, how lighting and focus and camera movement and other features of cinematography are at work, guiding how I see what's on the screen and affecting my experience with the movie.

Visions of Light has helped me more in expanding my movie viewing experience than anything else. 

3. Debbie and I decided a while back that when she travels to Eugene, I will stay home and take care of Gibbs, Luna, and Copper. 

This arrangement worked in the spring and it's working now in August.

The chief challenge of being alone with Gibbs, Luna, and Copper is that they can't be in the same room at the same time. Gibbs isn't mean to Luna and Copper, but he barks at them unrelentingly and chases them. Copper and Luna don't like being barked at and chased! 

So, Copper and Luna spend much of their time either in the Vizio room or the bedroom. 

Recently, I've been spending quite a bit of time in the living room writing and watching movies and other presentations related to movies on my MacBook.

Today, however, I left Gibbs alone in the living room and retired to the Vizio room to watch Out of the Past. 

I found out instantly that I'd spent way too much time apart from Luna!

She leapt on to my lap, climbed up my chest, and dug her claws into my clothing as if to say, "Hey, buddy, I'm not going anywhere and neither are you."

I held Luna close, stroked her from her head to her tail repeatedly and could feel her body tremble with gratitude that I was giving her the attention she so deeply desired. 

Copper doesn't jump on my lap, but shows his appreciation of my presence by moving closer to me.

Essentially, I spent the entire afternoon with Luna and Copper. Eventually, Luna had had enough of pinning me in my chair and she alternated between jumping onto the floor and then back up with me in my Vizio viewing chair. 

On occasion, I checked up on Gibbs. Earlier in the morning we'd had a pretty good session of me throwing his toys so Gibbs can retrieving them and burn off a lot of energy. By the time I disappeared into the Vizio room, he was content to rest on the ottoman, love seat, and our pale green stuffed chair.

I know Luna and Copper miss being with me at night, but everything works better if Gibbs sleeps on my bed at night. I close the bedroom door so that Copper and Luna can roam around the living room and kitchen and they seem content to find comfortable places to sleep at night. In the morning, I delay bringing Gibbs out of the bedroom as long as I can so that Luna and Copper can enjoy time with me in the living room before Gibbs comes out and they return to being behind a closed door.

In a perfect world, all three would be in the living room together, the canine lying with the felines, but we aren't there yet. In the meantime, I'll just continue to do all I can to keep Gibbs, Luna, and Copper separated and content. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-05-2022: Patio Prep Work, Zero and Babes with Axes and Longing, Scorsese and Then The Lounge

 1. So they could work in the cool part of the day, the crew arrived at 6:00 this morning and did the prep work and set the forms for the concrete to be poured and our patio to be finished next Friday. 

2. I started the morning listening again to two hours of Zero via Deadish, thanks to the KEPW-FM archives. His July 28th show ended and I went to Internet Archives and called up a show Zero played at the WOW Hall on December 3, 1993. It's a great show featuring two generous sets, a playlist that showcases how Zero moves easily and readily between rock, blues, jazz, reggae, and other forms. It's a perfect blend of instrumental tunes and other songs featuring both Judge Murphy and Merle Sanders on vocals.

I tried and tried to figure out if I went to this show. 

Then it hit me! I might not have gone to hear Zero on December 3, 1993, but the night before, on Thursday, December 2, 1993 I was in the audience at WOW Hall for the first ever live performance of Babes with Axes. 

I wasn't familiar with the music of three members of the band, Laura Kemp, TR Kelley, or Katie Henry, but I had heard the fourth Babe, Debbie Diedrich, perform a few times and I went to this show because she would be singing and playing. 

Today, in Eugene, Debbie, Katie, Laura, and TR are all in town at the same time, a rare occurrence. I talked with Debbie briefly around noon to let her know about the patio and she was on her way to Laura's house where the four of them were meeting up. 

So, I indulged in some nostalgia, remembering that first Babes with Axes show, having no idea on the evening of December 2, 1993 that four years later Debbie and I would be hanging out together, soon living together, and on December 24, 1997, driving to Coeur d'Alene to get married. 

Listening to recordings of Zero performing live stirs up my longing for that incomparable experience of being in the friendly confines of WOW Hall, hearing invigorating live music, dancing, and feeling connected to all those other people in the house who were also being transported and feeling joy as Zero played. 

The rapturous experience of listening and dancing to live jam bands was readily and easily accessible to me in Eugene and for about six years, give or take (about 1989-95), I regularly joined in the fun at WOW Hall.

Fortunately, that feeling of rapture has not disappeared from my life. I felt it again when Dirty Betty played at our 50 year reunion three weeks ago. I felt it when I heard Sverwood at the Timbers back in June. Just before live venues closed down in March, 2020, on back to back nights I was transported by two bands at the Bing in Spokane: The Black Tuxedo Orchestra paying tribute to Pink Floyd and the Cream tribute band, The Music of Cream. 

It's been a few years, but in the spring of 2014 and again in the summer of 2017, I got to feel the rapture of hearing Babes with Axes perform at the WOW Hall when the band performed two reunion shows. To this day, I can still feel the full body pleasure I experienced those two nights listening to Debbie and her bandmates perform. 

I do my best to stay focused on the present, to not spend too much time living in the past. I have to admit, though, when I listen to Zero I let their music carry me to those ecstatic nights at WOW Hall and it was an emotional bonus today that listening to Zero's show from December 3, 1993 carried me back to the 12/02/1993 Babes with Axes debut and the startling reality that Debbie and I began our life together four years later. The memories flooded my mind and, for a while, nostalgic sweetness occupied my body, mind, and spirit. 

3. Ed called me early in the afternoon and invited me to join him for a beer at The Lounge. We went up around 4:00 and I enjoyed some crisp, ice cold Miller High Life beer and Ed and I had fun yakkin' and yukking it up.

Before Ed picked me up, I watched the last hour of Martin Scorsese's documentary, My Voyage to Italy. 

In this last hour, Scorsese paid reverent tribute to Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, contrasting their styles and explicating the indelible imprint their work made on filmmakers world wide. 

For now, at Vizio University, I'm focusing on watching movies made in the USA. At some point, though, drawing upon Martin Scorsese as a guide, I will watch some of these Italian moves and do my best not only to understand their genius and influence, but emotionally to experience their power. 

Three Beautiful Things 08-04-2022: Martin Scorsese's *My Voyage to Italy*, Movies Without Studios, *Deadish* and My Mind Wandering BONUS: A Limerick by Stu

1.  My efforts at Vizio University turned to Martin Scorsese today. Yesterday, I read that in 1999 Scorsese made a four hour documentary, My Voyage to Italy, chronicling his experience with and the influence of Italian movies he saw in his youth and on into his early adulthood.

I looked in the usual places to see if this movie was streaming anywhere and, lo and behold, I found it at Internet Archives (archives.org). 

I was stoked.

2. The documentary goes back and forth between Scorsese talking about his Italian/Sicilian family and his experience growing up in an immigrant/Italian neighborhood on Elizabeth Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side. (By the way, he grew up even closer to NYU than I indicated in my post yesterday. His family apartment on Elizabeth Street was about a ten minute walk away from Greenwich Village. Spatially these locales were close to each other; culturally they were miles apart [and not in a bad way].)

The Italian movies he saw, often on television, as a young guy came to be known as Neo-Realist films. The Italian movie studios had been decimated and looted during the Second World War. Filmmakers dealt with this by making movies on various locations and often made use of non-actors. These movies are not escapist. They tell often brutal stories about Italy under fascist rule and portray the depravation of life after the war ended. 

These movies excited the imagination of filmmakers around the world. They blurred lines between fictional stories and documentary films. Lighting was often natural. Photographers took movie cameras where they'd rarely been before and told stories that grew out of the land and the people of Italy, not out of movie studios. 

If you'd like to see the list of movies Scorsese shows generous clips from and discusses, just go to the Wikipedia page entitled, My Voyage to Italy.

3. I didn't finish this documentary. I will return to the last hour as soon as possible and pick it up with Scorsese's treatment of Fellini. 

I changed things up around 9:00 and listened to Deadish at KEPW.org and blissed out on the parts of several Grateful Dead shows that they played over the years on August 4th. Jeff opened Deadish with live Jefferson Airplane from a show that featured both the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. I'm not sure I'd ever heard a tape of Jefferson Airplane in concert before and it was exciting.

I enjoy how the Grateful Dead's music frees up my mind and encourages my thoughts to wander. 

I thought a lot during tonight's Deadish show about what I learned today about Italian Neo-Realism and about the movies I've watched over the years in which directors did not offer viewers escape, but worked to take audiences deeper into the realities of everyday life, whether urban streets, war battles, job sites, seedy bars and diners, and countless other places.

I thought about Laura. I loved this movie. Yes, it explored dark aspects of life like jealousy and murder, but did so within a setting that transported audiences out of everyday life into a world of wealth, dinner parties, fine furnishings, and fashionable clothes. 

By way of contrast, I thought about The French Connection. In it, audiences are drawn into the grimy worlds of drug dealers, sketchy bars, a claustrophobic police precinct building, and a prolonged car chase scene that removes about as far from a studio back lot as we might imagine. 

The impact of the Italian movies Scorsese introduces to us in My Voyage to Italy reaches beyond movies, doesn't it? I think of all those episodes of Law and Order and how in episode after episode we experience street scenes, investigations in run down brownstones, pawn shops, bodegas, liquor stores, and other places that take us closer to life as it's experienced in much of New York City, rather than offering us escape from it. 

My recent studies at Vizio University sure have me wondering how and why, over the years, I've been so drawn to movies that don't provide much escape. Why, in junior high, was I more drawn to Cool Hand Luke than to say, Thoroughly Modern Milly. I don't know if I'll ever be able to answer that, but, who knows? Maybe with the help of the Grateful Dead my mind will wander to some possible answers!

A limerick by Stu:

They’re supposed to be hidden from sight.

With colors from gaudy to white. 

Told to make sure they’re clean, 

Lest by accident they’re seen. 

And your preference for undies sees light. 

 National Underwear Day

Three Beautiful Things 08-03-2022: (Zero Every Day) My Vizio U Notebook, Imogen Sara Smith on Film Noir, Watching *Laura*

Before I get down to the business of writing about the scintillating day I enjoyed today at Vizio University,  let me just say every day I listen to Jeff Harrison's July 28th Deadish show and its two hours of transcendent Zero tunes. I'd love to be listening to this show with other Zeroites, but since the only ones I know all live elsewhere, I let my mind wander to the WOW Hall and the Hilton Ballroom in Eugene and imagine being with Jeff and Margaret and Patsy and the scores of people at these shows whose names I never knew but who were willing travelers into the Zero stratosphere of bliss. I loved joining them. 

1.  I buckled down today at Vizio University. I know that my mind simply doesn't hold things the way it used to. (That's why, to help my memory, I often write so much detail in this blog.) Earlier this year, Debbie bought me a soft cover composition notebook and today I christened it my Vizio University Movie Studies notebook and began the process of filling it up.

I replayed the Criterion Now podcast featuring Farran Smith Nehme and paused the podcast multiple times to write down movies she mentioned and other insights. I took special note when she talked about having interviewed Martin Scorsese in support of the Criterion Channel making a collection of his short films, shot when he was in his early twenties, available. 

Scorsese's story is captivating. He grew up on in Lower East Side in NYC and eventually went to New York University in Greenwich Village. Growing up, Scorsese hadn't ventured over to Greenwich Village even though, by foot, he lived well within a half an hour of that neighborhood. So, when he started his studies at NYU, it was as if he landed on a different planet. Among the excitements of being at NYU in the early 60s? Movie theaters screening movie after movie from France, Italy, Russia, and other parts of the world where exciting innovations in filmmaking and storytelling were happening.

I am not at all familiar with these movies and I want to change that. 

As I work to understand the creative surge in movie making that happened in the USA when Scorsese, Friedkin, DePalma, Coppola, Altman, and others were young filmmakers, I want to understand better, not just by reading about it but by watching the movies, how their imaginative fires were stoked by these international movies. 

I've watched some of the Scorsese short films collected on the Criterion Channel and this interview moved me to want to watch the rest. 

2. I rested a bit and then resumed my studies by rewatching Imogen Sara Smith's Criterion introduction of John M. Stahl's technicolor noir movie, Leave Her to Heaven. In the course of her analysis of this movie, Smith gave a swift history of film noir in the USA and gave quick summations of several noir movies. I jotted down all of the titles and took notes on what Imogen Sara Smith laid out as recurring components of this genre of movies.

Through these interviews and presentations, I've learned that Eddie Muller is widely respected as a historian and commentator on film noir and that he hosts a program on Turner Classic Movies, Noir Alley. With this information, I stumbled upon Eddie Muller's copious number of YouTube videos, many of them intros and outros he has presented on TCM, each focused on specific noir movies. 

I see many hours in my future firing up these videos and listening to Eddie Muller, who, by the way, I wrote about several days ago after I'd watched a Criterion video presentation of him in a most absorbing conversation with Imogen Sara Smith about Double Indemnity. 

3. I decided I'd spent enough time today listening to really smart people talk about movies.

It was time to watch one.

In her introduction to Leave Her to Heaven, Imogen Sara Smith extols Gene Tierney's work and I realized that I have heard Gene Tierney's name a lot over the years, but couldn't remember seeing her in any movies. 

One classic film noir movie featuring Gene Tierney that has received a lot of mention recently at Vizio University is the 1941 Otto Preminger classic, Laura.

I watched it.

The movie opened with credits superimposed upon a large portrait hanging on a wall. Accompanied by lush orchestral music, it's Laura. With her image fixed in the viewer's mind, the credits end, there's a brief blackout, and then we are in a lush apartment, furnished like a museum with vases, clocks, glassware, gargoyles on the wall, and other pieces of refinement. A narrator begins to tell us his story of Laura.

A detective is in the apartment. The narrator's voice belongs to Waldo Lydecker (played deliciously by Clifton Webb). Lydecker invites the detective (Dana Andrews) into an adjoining room. I felt suddenly thrust into a perverse world.

Waldo Lydecker is a writer and radio show broadcaster and this first time we see him, he is naked, in a bathtub with a moveable writing ledge across it, and he's typing his next newspaper piece.

I'll leave it at that except to say that we are immediately introduced to this movie's brilliant script. It is as if the movie's producer, Otto Preminger, hired a Noel Corward/Oscar Wilde hybrid to give snappy, witty, cynical, and arrogant words to Waldo Lydecker and brought in Raymond Chandler to give the hard-boiled detective, Mark McPherson (played by Dana Andrews), his dialogue. Later, as we meet other characters, it's as if Tennessee Williams had been hired to write up the Vincent Price character, Shelby Carpenter, and this character's paramour, Ann Treadwell, played by Judith Anderson (who would later play Big Mama in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof).

I had no idea where this lush black and white movie, with its affluent characters living in lush interiors crammed with antiques, plush chairs and sofas, drinking top shelf liquor, socializing at posh parties, and eating at only the finest restaurants, was headed, but the movie's tone was set (supported perfectly by the movie's lighting) as was the unusual nature of its characters.

If I say more about the movie, I'd be giving too much away. I was so happy that I knew next to nothing about it as it developed, allowing me to enjoy the story's unfolding and its superb script.