Three Beautiful Things 12-30-2022: Old Man Not Driving, Teriyaki Wings, Potluck at The Lounge

1. The older I get, the less I venture out of town during the winter. Thursday, I would have felt fine about driving out of town, but it was snowy this morning, I didn't like how the 4th of July Pass looked when I viewed the images that are always available at 511.idaho.gov. So I didn't go to Connie Burkhart's memorial service in Hayden this morning, to my disappointment. I think it turned out that my cautiousness was unwarranted, but I'm just not the young damn the torpedos full speed ahead guy I used to be.

2. Among the things I got done around the house was preparing my contribution to this evening's potluck at The Lounge, a fun social time initiated by Sue Dahlberg and attended by members of the KHS Class of 72 and other friends. 

I kept my contribution simple. I fried a package of chicken party wings in butter, covered them with toasted sesame seeds, and then poured teriyaki sauce over them. I decided to make a milder and sweeter alternative to Buffalo wings and the last time I made teriyaki wings, I thought they were pretty good.

3. Debbie and I arrived at The Lounge around 5 o'clock and so did many others, all carrying plates or bowls of food -- our focus was on hors d'oeuvres, desserts, and salads -- and small crock pots to keep some offerings warm. 

I started off the party with a fun conversation with Gary, Ruthie's husband, whom I'd never met before. I then made my way to the bar and talked with several people. I set my drink down at a back room table, got a plate of food, and spent the rest of the evening yakkin' with Jake, Rod P., Dennis C., Rick S., Ed, Lars, and others, like Harley, who dropped by to join in for a while. 

From time to time, I surveyed the Lounge's back room and to my eye, at least, it looked like people were having a great time telling stories, laughing, talking about different things, and enjoying the food and one another's company. 

The vibe was really good.

Three Beautiful Things 12-29-2022: Break in the Weather, Comforting Goulash, Party Time with Sleuths and Perry Mason

1. The break in the weather today energized me, motivated me to complete one chore in particular that I love (no sarcasm) to be able to do. I loaded up the Sube station wagon with broken down cardboard boxes and took them to the transfer station to be recycled. When I returned to Kellogg, I drove up to the aluminum/newspaper-magazine/plastic container recycle station to see if I could get in there, but the county closed the station's parking lot.  

No problem. 

I returned home, loaded up the Sube with our cans, bottles, milk jugs, and newspaper/magazines and drove back to the transfer station and recycled them there.

The always smiling transfer station attendant told me I could go down to the office and get a sticker for the windshield denoting that I'm a county resident and can leave off most garbage and recycling without charge. So, I took care of that, too.

2. I further developed my plans for Monday's family dinner food preparation and went to Yoke's to buy groceries for this meal and other things. I had also decided to make an easy goulash for dinner tonight, so I got the goods I needed for that and came home, browned some ground beef, added chopped onions and garlic, cooked them until tender, and then added diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, V-8 juice, basil, oregano, seasoned salt, water, soy sauce, fennel seed, bay leaves, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a cup of elbow macaroni to the pot and simmered it for half an hour and the let it cool, with the lid on, for another thirty minutes.

The goulash was awesome: flavorful and comforting, just what Debbie and I wanted. 

3. After dinner, I freed the Vizio from captivity in the Vizio room and set it up in our newly rearranged living room. Debbie and I watched two episodes of Perry Mason, an episode of Columbo, and the movie, Murder at the Gallop (1963), featuring Margaret Rutherford (whom I love) as Agatha Christy's sleuth Miss Jane Marple. I had fun spreading three cocktails over the course of our nearly five hours of viewing. I started with a Brandy Alexander, continued with a gin screwdriver (with fresh squeezed orange juice), and capped off the evening by combining rum, Creme de Cacao, and boiling water in a mug. 

It was a great party. 

Gibbs, however, was not enthralled by either Perry Mason, Lt Columbo, or Miss Marple and we had to pause our entertainment from time to time because Gibbs wanted to play fetch or have Debbie dig one of his meat bones out his toy chest. Gibbs is small. His bark is not. It is impossible to hear the television when Gibbs lets us know his immediate needs and desires are not being met! So we meet them! Ha! 

Three Beautiful Things 12-28-2022: The Darkness of *The Maltese Falcon*, Coaches Yelling Take Me Back, Perry Mason Prevails

 1. Carol and Paul gave me Eddie Muller's book on film noir entitled Dark City and as I dipped into it, I realized that, as far as I can remember, I had never watched The Maltese Falcon (1941), regarded by many as the first major film noir. I'm not much interested in determining the noir-ness or the first-ness of the movie. I wanted to experience what makes this movie so enduringly admired and respected.

I admit that I was always happy and relieved when any scene involving Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) kissing a woman ended. 

Those few minutes of the movie aside, I enjoyed the complicated, complex development of the movie, its shadowy world. We never know what's actual in the world of The Maltese Falcon and what's fabricated and we are never quite sure, beyond their self-concern, where different characters' loyalties lie. 

The Maltese Falcon is a murder mystery, at least at the outset. But, as the the story deepens, it becomes much more occupied with greed, with the lengths the characters longing to possess the Maltese falcon will go to acquire it. So, to me, the noir-ness of The Maltese Falcon was in its exploration of psychological and moral (or amoral) darkness, the way it moves deeper and deeper into the darkness of covetousness, mendacity, and obsession. 

I agree with those who say The Maltese Falcon is less a movie about solving the murders and much more a story of how the character of Sam Spade negotiates all of the corruption of his antagonists and the corruption within himself.  

The movie was perfectly cast. I thought Mary Astor's portrayal of her character's total commitment to falseness and manipulation was brilliant. I had very much enjoyed Sydney Greenstreet as the magazine publisher in Christmas in Connecticut. The Maltese Falcon was Greenstreet's first appearance, at age 61, in a movie and as the obsessed Mr. Gutman, he was staggeringly unnerving, as was Peter Lorre as Gutman's accomplice, Joel Cairo. 

2. I watched on half of Gonzaga's demolition of Eastern Oregon University and I'd had enough. I didn't need to see any more of this absolute blow out. The final score: 120-42.

It was a different story, however, in Storrs, CT where the powerhouse Connecticut Huskies hosted a Big East conference battle with the ever improving Villanova Wildcats. This was a bare knuckled, bruising game. The teams weren't quite evenly matched as the Huskies are deeper and have more talent than Villanova, but the Wildcats slowed down the game enough, kept the rock on their end of court enough, that they stayed close to the Huskies but could never quite get over the hump, take a lead, and get the better of UConn. The score was close, but I never thought Villanova would overcome Connecticut's versatility and depth and, sure enough, the Huskies prevailed, 74-66.

One afternoon, Cas and I were bellied up to the bar at Eddie Joe's enjoying the afternoon delight of adult beverages when a loud and seemingly never ending verbal confrontation broke out between two Eddie Joe's regulars. The woman dominated the fight and for what seemed like 45-60 minutes she screamed one grievance after another at the man. It was awful to witness, if for no other reason, because the volume of the screaming was, for me, nerve racking. Nothing bad between the two came of her screaming and yelling, but it stressed me out, made me very anxious.

I had a similar experience watching the "all-access" broadcast of Xavier's basketball game against St. John's this evening. FS1 had both coaches wear a microphone during the game and so we, as viewers, had full access to everything the coaches said during the action on the court and in the teams' huddles.

I didn't enjoy this experiment at all. Both coaches, Sean Miller and Mike Anderson, yelled, practically non-stop from the sideline and I not only felt the acids churn in my stomach, I had flashbacks to how much I not only hated being yelled at by coaches, and experienced again how little good the yelling ever did. In fact, whenever coaches yelled at me, it further eroded my already flimsy confidence and made my already nervous performances even tighter and less free.  It wasn't long before I tuned out any yelling from my coaches and could hardly wait to be out of the gym. 

I didn't think all the instructions both coaches yelled from the bench did much good. 

I do know it made my viewing experience of this game miserable much of the time.

Xavier defeated St. John's 84-79, staving off a late game comeback by the Johnnies.

It was fun seeing St. John's make what looked like a runaway victory for the X-men interesting in the game's closing minutes.

But, if FS1 does this all-access thing again, I'll find something else to do or watch.

3. I decided to wind down after listening to two hours of two coaches yelling by watching an episode of Perry Mason. Tonight's case involved a murder and a fraudulent divorce case and it sure looked, thanks to a series of circumstances, like Perry Mason's client would be found guilty. But, Paul Drake did some nifty detective work, unearthed some crucial documents, and, lo and behold, Perry Mason not only got his client off the hook, he drew a confession out of the real killer on the stand.

Sound familiar? You bet it does! It happens every episode!  It's why we return to Perry Mason again and again. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-27-2022: Birthday at Home, Watching Burl Ives in *Day of the Outlaw*, Birthday Casserole

 1. I slept in until 8:00 this morning, drank orange juice, and fixed a cup of coffee and decided almost immediately that I would spend my birthday at home. I'd thought I might go to CdA and go out for breakfast and go see a movie, but it was so gray and wet and sloppy out that I immediately canceled those plans and stayed put. 

I enjoyed being home. Debbie and I did some rearranging of the living room. I enjoyed birthday greetings as I heard from numerous people on Facebook and via text messages and by telephone.  I relaxed in the Vizio room with Copper and Luna. After three days of family parties on the 24th, 25th, and 26th, it was refreshing to slow myself all the way down and take it nice and easy.

2. This afternoon, I was in the mood for a movie. You'd think on my birthday, I'd want to watch something entertaining, something that would help me celebrate this day.

But, no, I didn't do that (and I can't explain why!).

The Criterion Channel is featuring a collection of movies under the title, Snow Westerns. I thought, well, as long as it's a snowy December in Kellogg, I think I'll give one of these movies a try. 

So, during one of our family get togethers, we talked a bit about actors whom we had underestimated over the years. I offered up Burl Ives to our discussion and his thunderous performance in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

When I scanned the Snow Westerns offerings, I saw that the movie, Day of the Outlaw (1959) featured Burl Ives in a villainous role opposite Robert Ryan. The fact that Tina Louise was in this movie also piqued my interest. The only role I'd ever seen her play was Ginger on Gilligan's Island.

Outlaw in Town is brutal and bleak. It takes place in winter in a fictional Wyoming settlement called Bitter where tensions between the rancher played by Robert Ryan and homesteading farmers are getting dangerously high. But, the whole focus of the movie changes when the Burl Ives character and a small band of outlaws arrive in Bitter and take over the town.

I don't want to give away any more of the plot.

I'll just say that the brutality and bleakness of this troubling movie are inseparable from the movie's stunning cinematography, especially of the bleak winter conditions.

At times, it's as if Jack London and Robert Frost collaborated with the director, Andre de Toth, and director of photography, Russell Harlan, to create a movie not only of desert places, but of the raw relationship and conflict between humans, animals, and the rigors of wind, snow, and frigid temperatures. 

3. Christy came over at 6:00 and joined Debbie and me for the birthday dinner I requested: enchilada casserole and a green salad. We started off our time together with a cocktail -- Christy and Debbie ordered Old-Fashioneds and I made myself a quick rum and coke. Our dinner was superb. When we lived in Eugene, Debbie used to fix this enchilada casserole frequently and we hadn't had it for quite a while. I not only enjoyed how delicious it was, but I also enjoyed the memories the food triggered and the comfort of this casserole. It was also fun that Christy could join us for dinner and some solid yakking afterward. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-25-2022: French Canadian Christmas Dinner, A Screwball Comedy in Connecticut, *Force of Evil*

1. I'll begin in the middle. Debbie, Christy, Carol, Paul, Cosette, Taylor, Saphire, Molly, Zoe, and our next door neighbor Jane all piled into Carol and Paul's house for this year's Christmas dinner featuring the cuisine of another country. I might have mentioned before on this blog that every year Carol picks a different country, researches Christmas dinners/traditions of that country, and assigns each of us something to prepare for the meal. 

This year Carol decided we'd enjoy a Canadian Christmas dinner and, once she started researching, she narrowed it to a French Canadian dinner called a Reveillon, and we prepared our family's version of a Reveillon (which you can read more about here). 

Our Reveillon started with Zoe's contribution, perfectly baked homemade baguettes and Creton, a spicy pork pate. 

Paul made mulled wine to help get our Reveillon going.

We moved to the dining table where each of us had a Christmas Cracker at our assigned place and we opened them and put on our crowns. Some family members shared jokes found inside the Cracker and most of us contemplated what we would do with the other little prize also inside.

Then we got down to the business of enjoying the main course of our meal.

Everything centered around the Tourtiere Tart (meat pie) Carol baked. 

We opened with a cup of the pea soup I made.

We cut the flaky crusted pork and potato and onion Tourtiere into slices for each of our plates, served ourselves the perfectly prepared Buttered Root Vegetables (carrot, turnip, rutabaga) Cosette and Taylor fixed, and enjoyed Debbie's really tasty Quick Pickles with quatre spices. 

We further enhanced our meal with wine, a bottle of red and one of white.

Once we had leisurely eaten the main course, we retired to the living room for a double, possibly a triple dessert. 

Christy brought a Maple Yule Log. It was sponge cake rolled up with maple infused whipping cream inside and on the log's surface. It was a visual delight and tasted very good. 

Jane baked a batch of small buttered tarts filled with delicious raisin brown sugary filling. 

As an added bonus, Molly made a batch of hot buttered rum batter and some of us had a hot drink with our dessert.

What a great Christmas dinner! We had a lot of fun and everyone's contributions were superb.

2. I decided to relax with a couple of movies today, one before dinner and another when we arrived home. 

I can't imagine watching two movies more different from each other. 

I watched a Christmas-y screwball comedy in the afternoon and a deep, dark, unsettling film noir in the evening.

I started with Christmas in Connecticut (1945), featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan. It's a madcap story about a women's magazine writer, played by Stanwyck, who writes monthly articles about her life on a Connecticut farm and the meals she prepares, how she cares for her baby, and other things. What none of her readers (or her publisher) knows is that this writer lives in Manhattan, can't cook, is single, and has no children.

Well, the magazine's publisher invites a soldier recently rescued at sea after spending two weeks on a life raft and himself to the fictional farm.

Out of this turn of events a fast-paced and hilarious story unfolds as Stanwyck's character, with help from others, works to keep a charade going that she does live on a farm.

I'll leave it at that. 

It was a fun way to get ready for our family's gathering today.

3. After returning home from dinner, I watched Force of Evil, a 1948 film noir featuring John Garfield and directed by Abraham Polonsky -- and, by the way, it was produced by Enterprise Productions, Garfield's independent production company.

Polonsky also had a strong hand in writing this movie's poetic screenplay, an adaptation of Ira Wolfert's novel, Tucker's People. 

It's a movie about Joe Morse (played by Garfield), a lawyer eager to become a millionaire, and how he aligns himself with a kingpin of organized crime and involves himself in a scam that will result in his boss taking over the entire numbers racket in New York City. 

But Joe Morse's brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), is a small time banker in the numbers racket and the scheme Joe Morse gets involved with will bankrupt his brother.

So, where does Joe Morse's loyalty lie? As the movie explores this question, it also explores the amorality of capitalism, what, if anything, makes a human life meaningful, and peers deeply into the very nature of evil itself. 

After I watched Force of Evil, I read Eddie Muller's comments about the movie and listened to his intro and outro from when Noir Alley featured the movie. I also listened to an intro by Sydney Pollack and I read several other reviews of the movie and came to understand much more deeply how and why this movie has been so influential, especially for Martin Scorsese. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-25-2022: Slowing Down Santa's Sleigh, Listening to Podcasts, In Tribute to Mom

 1. I've reached a point in life where if I try to be a Christmas marathoner, I get exhausted. Being tired drains the pleasure out of our family's festivities. So, this year, Debbie and I opted not to participate in the morning get togethers at Carol and Paul's on the 25th and 26th, but to fully participate in our dinners on those two evenings.

Everyone generously accepted our decision -- thank goodness. 

So Debbie and I rested and relaxed at home all day until we hot-footed it next door to Christy's for a Christmas dinner. The others had exchanged gifts in the morning and then we had a gift exchange at Christy's so that Debbie and I could give and receive presents. 

It all worked out splendidly.

2. So, you might be wondering, what did Debbie and I do at home by ourselves?

We listened to a rebroadcast of the This American Life episode entitled "Lights, Cameras, Christmas" and listened to stories about a little girl who is allergic to the guinea pig her parents gave her for Christmas, a family who created their own stories about Santa, elves, and other magical things to live by (and some of the painful fallout of what they did), a small town Utah woman who recalls her family adopting a deer and how the deer appeared in the town's school Christmas pageant (warning! this story ends very sadly), and a bizarre story Jonathan Goldberg made up about Santa Claus that I can't even begin to summarize. 

Jonathan Goldberg's bizarre story led me to look up his podcast, Heavyweight. I scanned the synopses of his many episodes over the last few years. He tells stories about moments in people's lives that changed everything and works with the people in these stories to go back and interview those who were involved in these incidents.

Some of these stories sounded too troubling to listen to today, but one didn't: it's the story of a sound engineer in Chicago whose voice can be heard in the worst McDonald's ad ever made.

Well, I suppose some pretty good arguments could be made that the "Random Red Couch" ad isn't the absolute worst McDonald's ad ever, but it was so bad that it blew up both Reddit and Twitter with people asking the eternal question, "What the hell was that?"

It's a great episode. 

Jonathan Goldberg climbs what the calls the "blame ladder" and interviews one person after another who worked at the ad agency that created "Random Red Couch", each higher up the company's hierarchy. These interviews are awesome.

There's more to the story than I've encapsulated here. If you'd like to take some time and listen to any of these podcasts we enjoyed today, here are some links:

You will find the Lights, Camera, Christmas episode of This American Life, here.

The episode of Heavyweight is entitled, "Bobby". You can listen to it, here.

I really don't know how you can resist watching the "Random Red Couch" McDonald's ad -- who knows? you might even remember it. It aired about seven years ago.

For your viewing pleasure, you can watch that ad right here. 

3. Unrushed, rested, enjoying the fruits of a day of stillness and podcasts, I marched behind Debbie over to Christy's for a Christmas gathering focused on remembering our mother.

Mom loved sweet cocktails and we opened with a candy cane martini. For our main entree, Christy made a kind of casserole that Mom used to cook called Hot Crab Sandwich. Carol brought a green salad and made a batch of Sunshine Inn bleu cheese dressing (I know -- at the Sunshine Inn it was Roquefort cheese dressing, but we do the best we can!). Tonight's appetizer definitely paid homage to Mary Idell West Woolum. We all ate handfuls of Nuts and Bolts. 

Before diving into the casserole, we all told stories and shared memories of Mom.  Christy went all out and wrote a poem in the style of "The Night Before Christmas" focused on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day mishaps that seemed to happen all too regularly and, understandably, stressed Mom out to the max.

It's funny now, though!

We exchanged gifts, drank Stingers to further honor Mom, and Christy brought out a couple more Mary Idell West Woolum favorites, Almond Roca and spritz cookies. 

I might have missed writing about something, but, even if incomplete, I think this synopsis of our Christmas get together at Christy's does, at the very least, give you a sense of the spirit of the occasion.

Our blow out Christmas dinner will be on December 26th, delayed so that Cosette, Taylor, and Saphire can join in our feast that will be centered on French Canadian Christmas cuisine.

Three Beautiful Things 12-24-2022: 25th Wedding Anniversary, Smoked Prime Rib, Family Snack Time

1. Twenty-five years ago today, Debbie and I woke up after spending the night with friends, had a bite to eat (as I remember) at Lindaman's Bistro, and rocketed to the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel in Coeur d'Alene and, in a very simple ceremony, got married. Molly, Patrick, and Adrienne were in Chicago with family. After the ceremony, Debbie and I zoomed to Kellogg and joined Mom, Christy, Everett, Carol, Paul, Molly, Cosette, and Zoe (did I forget anyone?) for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities. 

I took a little time at different points in the day and thought back over the past twenty-five years of being with Debbie. We've been flexible over the years, supportive of one another in situations that that required long stretches of time apart. We worked together to help send Adrienne, Patrick, and Molly into the world and have happily provided each of them with a place to live when they needed a place to sort out different difficulties or were in transition.  We've enjoyed going on car trips, whether across the USA or blasting our way up and down the New Jersey Turnpike, driving to New Jersey and New York from Greenbelt, MD. We made a fun trip to the Jamestown area, too, and enjoyed drives out across the Chesapeake Bay and into eastern Maryland. I hope we'll go to British Columbia and other places in Canada before too long. 

2. For our anniversary dinner, Debbie had called in an order to GarrenTeed BBQ, a superb food truck here in Kellogg. GarrenTeed offered a special today, a smoked prime rib dinner featuring a generous slice of smoked prime rib, a huge baked potato, au jus, dinner roll, drink, and second side. I picked up our dinners around 3:45 and we were blown away by how deliciously prepared the prime rib was, how tender and tasty it was, and by the generous portions. We could have easily split one dinner between us, but, instead we have leftovers to dig into some time down the road. If I haven't written it before, I think GarrenTeed's Crack and Cheese (macaroni and cheese made with pepper jack cheese) is peerless and I loved my helping as a side to the prime rib and potato. 

By the way, I am almost certain that this was the first time I'd eaten smoked prime rib. It worked for me in a big way!

We'll be keeping an eye out for when GarrenTeed BBQ might offer this special again. It's a good idea to keep an eye out -- limited dinners are available when he puts on this special and once they begin accepting orders ahead of time, they sell out quickly.

3. Christy, Carol, Paul, and Zoe went to the Christmas Eve service at Mountain View Congregational Church (across the street) and then piled into our living room for a cocktail and some snacks as a Christmas Eve and wedding anniversary get together. Debbie made a batch of Brandy Old-Fashioneds and she set out a spread of sliced meat, cheeses, crackers, and different sweet things for us to eat. Nearly all of this food came to Debbie and me as gifts and we were very happy to share our bounty with our family.

Icy conditions made getting to our house challenging, but by helping one another out, everyone got in and out and back home safely. We had fun sitting in the living room yakkin' about all kinds of things, including histories of the Tom and Jerry drink and Nuts and Bolts. 

Debbie and I weren't quite done drinking or yakking when the house cleared out and we had a great time finishing off the batch of Old-Fashioneds and yakking about our experiences over the years with Christmas and how we experience Christmas now that we are older. Very interesting conversation! 

Three Beautiful Things 12-23-2022: Polar Vortex Tasks, Tom and Jerry Party, Staying Warm and Happy at The Lounge

1. Kellogg's version of the polar vortex continued today, combining single digit temperatures with fresh snowfall. I bundled up a couple of times and cleared the sidewalks, opting to shovel shallow snow accumulation twice rather than a deeper accumulation once. The shoveling itself went well. Enduring the frigid temperatures was more difficult, but I got my tasks done. 

2. Around 3:00, I knocked the snow off the Sube, made sure the doors were not frozen shut, turned the engine over, and warmed up the old horse in preparation for bulldozing our way to Carol and Paul's for a low key and relaxing Tom and Jerry party. Using Dad's recipe, Carol whipped up a batch of Tom and Jerrybatter and the hot water, rum, and brandy worked together great and we enjoyed our hot drinks. Carol had also just finished making a batch of Nuts and Bolts (a.k.a. for most people Chex Mix) using a recipe Grandma Woolum introduced into our family nearly 60 years ago. The Nuts and Bolts were warm, right out of the oven, and, as always, paired perfectly with the Tom and Jerry drinks. 

Christy joined us after a while. So did Molly. It was a good little gathering, a warm up for the three straight days of get togethers we have planned for December 24, 25, & 26!

3. Debbie and I shoehorned ourselves back into the Sube and snowmobiled up Hill Street and found a parking spot on McKinley and dropped in on a merry scene at The Lounge.

The group of Wallace High grads from about 40-55 years ago who go to a different bar every Friday were in The Lounge this afternoon and I shared some warm words and an embrace with Rob Gillies. Debbie and I bellied up to the bar. The Fitzes were in the house and Debbie and Deanne fell into conversation about life at Pinehurst Elementary School and a host of other subjects. I asked Cas to make me a hot drink simply combining rum, brandy, and hot water. I got in some solid yakkin' with Cas as well as with Bucky and Debbie. Mostly, I soaked up the plentiful good cheer, the happy vibes in The Lounge and kept myself comfortably warm with my hot drink. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-22-2022: More Arctic Air, Tomato Soup, Hmmm--Michael Walker and Jon Lord . . .

1. The wind chill temperatures dipped below zero again today and we stayed put. Debbie and I got a few things done around the house. It was pretty much a day of hibernation.

2. I ate hot and comforting tomato soup around dinner time. 

3. I returned to Deep Purple and listened again to interviews with the band members about the album Machine Head and raised my chilly spirits by listening to a few tunes. I especially enjoy Jon Lord's parts on the Hammond organ. For me, Lord's work adds layers of beauty and innovation to Deep Purple's songs, giving their heavy metal sound drive, depth, and sophistication. 

I had one random and odd thought today. Wouldn't it be fun (at least for me) if any of the Portland bands that Michael Walker plays for would cover, say, "Lazy" and let Michael Walker, himself a maestro on keyboards, wail away on Jon Lord's parts. 

(Then I had a second thought: instrumentally, the boys Michael Walker plays with could all cover Deep Purple, but, good God, no one I know of could bring Ian Gillan's soaring vocals to these covers.)  

Three Beautiful Things 12-21-2022: Dealing with the Arctic Blast, Birthday Cocktails, Revisiting *Machine Head* on *Classic Albums*

1. I warmed myself with a cup of coffee first thing this morning and then I shoveled the snow that fell Tuesday afternoon and into the evening. Today's forecast was for frigid temperatures but no new snow. I was very happy to get this job done right off the bat. Later, I went back out into the frigid air with a broom and knocked snow off the Sube and I made sure the car doors weren't frozen shut. They weren't! Now the way was clear for a trip to Yoke's! 

2. Today was Debbie's birthday. For her birthday, she asked if we could spiff up the living room and we did. She also wanted to go to The Beanery for a cocktail. We did that, too. Back home, we enjoyed a ham and bean dish Debbie had been working on for the past day or so and it was warming and delicious. 

3. For the rest of the evening, Debbie wanted to watch some television programs on her computer and I retired to the bedroom to spend time with Copper and Luna and to work on getting the room warmed up. I kind of accidentally landed on an episode of the great VHI series Classic Albums featuring Deep Purple's band members and others breaking down the making of Machine Head. I'd watched this episode before, but it had been a while and it was just as informative and exciting tonight as I remembered it being before. I especially enjoyed Jon Lord's and Roger Glover's insights into the musical depth of Deep Purple's songs. Somehow back in my days at NIC when I listened to Machine Head at home and when I heard "Smoke on the Water" on the radio, I didn't think about the musical knowledge that went into composing these songs. I just listened, drank Lucky Lager beer, and rocked out. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-20-2022: Snow Shoveling Day, Working in the Garage, 2 OT in Providence and the Zags Win

 1. My return to full health over the last week turned out to be a good thing today. It snowed non-stop and it was good that I felt hale and hardy and could get out and shovel snow off of our sidewalks a couple of times. I was a little bit disappointed in myself this morning that I hadn't finished shoveling when our mail carrier arrived, but she handed me our mail just as she exited her truck so she didn't have to trudge up our snow-covered sidewalk to the porch and our mailbox. I made a pledge to myself to shovel earlier in the future so that the walkways are clear when the mail carrier arrives. 

2. Normally, I don't let our cardboard boxes occupy a lot of room in our garage. When they start to pile up a bit, I load up the Sube and take the boxes to the county's transfer station. Recently, however, more boxes than usual have been arriving at our house so to make better use of space in the garage, I went out and broke down all of our boxes and created a neat, space saving pile. Once the weather settles down, I'll take them to the transfer station and I'll also take the many, many 7 Up, ginger ale, and seltzer water cans and other recyclables down to the station across from the medical center.

3. Normally, when Gonzaga plays, I enjoy writing some observations of the game, just for the fun of it. Tonight, I didn't tune into the Zags' tilt against Montana until after half time because I got mesmerized by Providence's double overtime win over Marquette. 

I watched the second half of Gonzaga's 85-75 victory. Unlike against Alabama, the Zags' effort tonight was unbalanced. Drew Timme carried the scoring load, pouring in 32 points (and causing two Griz inside players to foul out) and only two other Bulldogs scored over 10 points: Julian Strawther racked up 15 points and Malachi Smith chipped in 11. 

The last three minutes or so of the game got interesting. The Zags suddenly couldn't score and Montana's players not only got hot, they suddenly played with a surge of intensity and confidence and charged to within five points of Gonzaga. Soon the Grizzlies had to start fouling, though, and the Zags made enough of their free throws and by adding in a field goal or two held off the Montana comeback and finished with a ten point victory.

I discovered while watching these two games that while I watch, I also enjoy stuffing envelopes with All-Class Reunion forms and schedules and putting stamps and return address labels on them.  During tonight's games, I took care of all the forms and schedules I brought home and am hoping I can pick up more forms and continue working on this envelope stuffing project while simultaneously enjoying watching college basketball. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-19-2022: Getting Out of Town!, Fun Stop at Fred Meyer, Envelope Stuffing for the All-Class Reunion

 1. You know what? I had fun today just getting out of the house and getting out of town. Debbie and I broke our usual inertia and actually got going to Coeur d'Alene a little after noon with a very modest agenda in mind. We dropped in to Great Clips and both got a haircut. While waiting for my turn at the parlor, I scooted over to Costco and filled up the Camry with petrol. We cruised the aisles of Costco for a while. I marveled at the overflowing shopping carts all around me, hardly able to hold all the prime ribs, shrimp trays, bottles of wine, blocks of cheese, boxes of crackers, and other items, all promising to help make holiday get togethers and feasts festive and tasty. I was there mostly for paper towels and Peet's ground French roast coffee and a couple sleeves of bagels, but Debbie also purchased some items for her students and some clothing for herself. 

2. Upon leaving Costco, we decided to blast over to Fred Meyer where Debbie bought some more clothing items, mostly to teach in, and I zeroed in on the "healthy foods" dairy case and bought a quart of Nancy's Raspberry Kefir and a few other items, including smoked salmon and cream cheese for our bagels. It was just starting to get dark when we left Fred Meyer, but it didn't get pitch black until about the time we reached Kellogg and, thankfully, the freeway from CdA to Kellogg was not icy, not snowy, and made for comfortable driving conditions.

3. At 6:30, I rocketed over to the what used to be the Kellogg Middle School. You'd think now that I've lived in Kellogg for five years, I'd know what the old Kellogg Middle School is called now. 

I don't.

I just know it's where I go once a month for All-Class Reunion Committee meetings.

It was cold out. Snowy. A good night to stay home! 

Some people were hosting guests tonight. Others are beset by injury and illness. So for these and other solid reasons, we had a small turnout for tonight's envelope stuffing meeting. Undaunted, the seven of us got right down to business and stuffed registration forms and schedules into envelopes and affixed return address labels and stamps on them. I brought about 60-70 forms and envelopes and labels and stamps home after I worked at the meeting for about an hour and a half. I will continue to contribute to this huge task, working at home.  The people in charge of collecting addresses have discovered that a pretty significant number of KHS grads over the last several decades do not have email addresses, so this project is about doing our best to get the word out to them about the reunion by mail. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-18-2022: ZOOM Time!, No More Cornbread Mixes!, Family Dinner

 1. Over in the ZOOM zone this afternoon, Bridgit, Bill, Diane, and I talked about music and musicians, poems and poets, family complications that can arise at holiday time, the changes Diane is experiencing as a relatively newly retired person, and Bridgit's vision of her retirement in a couple of years. We also talked about respiratory infections/viruses and spent some time reviewing the past nearly three years and the illnesses we've experienced and ones we've witnessed. I think we agreed that as we age, our health and well-being becomes more vulnerable and that having illness descend upon us, even if we are doing all the right things, is unpredictable and possibly inevitable.

2. I made a quick trip to Yoke's and was of little help when I ran into Christy who was looking for a specific kind of port wine. I did, however, decide to try a cornbread mix I'd never heard of called Uncle Dave's. I returned home and baked a pan of cornbread for family dinner and, as has been the case with several things I've bought at the store, I was disappointed with how much sugar was in this mix. From now on, I'm going to take the extra time of baking cornbread from scratch and assert more control over the cornbread's amount of sugar and sweetness. (By the way, and thank God, those who commented on the cornbread at dinner said they liked it. That was a relief. Nonetheless, in the future, I'm staying away from cornbread mixes.)

3. Paul, Carol, Molly, Debbie, and I invaded Christy's house for family dinner tonight. We started with cucumber slices topped with cheese and a red pepper that made the food look like Santa's hat and with a bourbon and cinnamon whiskey and pomegranate juice, garnished with a cinnamon stick and an orange slice. I never caught the name of it, but I enjoyed mine. I drank it very slowly. It was the first cocktail or any alcohol I had consumed for over three weeks.

Christy baked a ham and fixed our cousin Derek's cheesy potato recipe for dinner. This was Sunday night comfort food for sure. Debbie roasted baby carrots and added fresh spinach leaves to this side dish. I brought cornbread and Carol made a tasty fruit salad. 

Our conversation tonight was wide and deep as we discussed different ways of understanding and experiencing Christianity, the kindness of strangers and neighbors, and some of the things that are dividing people one from another in the USA. It's a relief to me that the six of us are not in conflict about these matters and, if fact, find support in each other as we discuss our observations and offer up our analyses. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-17-2022: Zags Defeat Alabama, Great Teams Square Off, Tiger Woods as a Dad

 1. I mean, just on the most superficial level, I thought Gonzaga was in deep trouble today in their tilt against Alabama. I went to Google maps to see how far the Crimson Tide had to travel from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham to play on a so-called neutral court. They traveled about 53 minutes, about the amount of time it takes me to get from Kellogg to the taproom at the YaYa Brewery in Spokane Valley. 

Gonzaga travelled 2241 miles at the end of finals week to reach Birmingham. The two teams met at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena, in front of 15,847 people. I know some of those present were Gonzaga fans because CBS showed us Ma and Pa Timme several times, a woman wearing a T-shirt with Timme's name on it, and because my KHS, Class of 72 classmate David Dill was in the house sporting a Gonzaga hoody.

The first seven minutes of the game progressed pretty much the way I thought (feared -- I was pulling for the Zags) it would and Alabama held a nine point lead, 20-11.

But, the Zags began to close the gap and once they claimed a lead in the first half, they never trailed again and went on to defeat the Crimson Tide 100-90.

How did Gonzaga do it? 

I have a few observations, none of which are hills I would die on. It's just how I see things.

* Turnovers. Gonzaga tightened up its own protection of the rock and only committed nine turnovers. Alabama, on the other hand, committed twenty-one. To me, turnovers present a question I can't readily answer. How many of those turnovers did the Zags force with quick hands, deflections, and anticipation of where Crimson Tide passes were going? How many of those turnovers were, to use a tennis term, unforced errors? I'd have to watch the game again to figure it out, but to their credit, Gonzaga had twelve steals. I don't know how many of those turnovers the Zags converted into points -- I haven't seen or read that statistic, but it's clear (if not obvious) that Alabama's turnovers, forced and unforced errors, hurt them badly. 

Now, I admit that when I watch basketball games, I tend toward seeing the positive things teams do more than the negative and, in doing so, I might overrate or overestimate these positive developments. 

That said, and I realize that Kent State and Washington were inferior opponents, but in those two games I thought Gonzaga was starting to play more intense defense. I didn't think they played with much intensity against N Illinois, but today I thought the intensity I sensed a week or so ago was back. 

I found myself wishing that Gonzaga's coaching staff would do what Marquette's does and hold up a white board telling how many balls the team has deflected over the course of a game. Marquette's goal is 32 deflections per game. Did Gonzaga cause 32 or more deflections today? I don't know, but they had to have caused quite a few. 

(By the way, Stu told me the thought it was a poorly officiated game. I am incapable of assessing officiating. It's just not what I pay attention to when I watch games and I can't tell much about officials' calls watching games on television. I know TAT, Byrdman, Lars, and Stu are all much more tuned in to how games are officiated than I am. So, if you are reading my observations and saying to yourself, but, but the officials. . . I am incapable, even after all these years of once playing and now watching basketball games, of participating in that conversation.)

* Drew Timme scored 29 points on 12-18 shots from the field and, as he does so often, scored those points with a variety of hook shots, floaters, lay ups, and fade aways. I thought Timme benefited in his production from how well the other Gonzaga players also scored. Anton Watson scored 17 points. I thought his production made it difficult for Alabama's defense to swarm Timme. In the second half, as the Alabama defense bunched itself in the key, Nolan Hickman exploited this by hitting shots from about 12-15 feet and ended up scoring 13 points. Julian Strawther is fighting off a bug, but in the 18 minutes he played, he scored 11 points, but more importantly, Malachi Smith came off the bench to play 24 minutes, score 12 points, and, in the last six minutes of the game, hold his man, the explosive Brandon Miller, scoreless. How explosive was Miller? Despite not scoring in the last six minutes, he tallied 36 for the game. He is one of the nation's very best players, for sure. 

Only one other Alabama player scored in double figures. Jaden Bradley scored 18. Gonzaga's scoring was much better balanced. Timme, Hickman, Watson, Smith, Bolton, and Strawther all scored in double figures and, I thought, the Zags benefited from a couple of timely shots scored by Ben Gregg and Efton Reid. 

* My last observation (thank God). Early on in this game, if I remember correctly, Alabama dominated rebounds on their own missed shots. Again, just trusting my memory, it seemed to me that as the game progressed, Gonzaga gave up fewer offensive rebounds. Yes, for the game, Alabama out rebounded the Zags 37-30, but I thought the rebounding were pretty even in the games last, say, 30 minutes. 

From now until the NCAA Tournament, Gonzaga will be favored in every game they play, I think. Their last two non-conference games against Montana and Eastern Oregon should give their bench players the opportunity to play a lot more minutes. 

Then WCC play begins. There's no guarantee that the Zags will zip through their conference schedule undefeated, but they could. 

2. Today was a riveting one in college basketball with five games (I think) matching top 25 teams against each other. I didn't see much of North Carolina's impressive comeback against Ohio State and their eventual win in OT nor did I watch a lot of Houston's win over UVA.  I enjoyed watching UCLA steadily wear down Kentucky, fend off the Wildcats' comeback attempts,  and earn a 63-53 victory. Most of all, I enjoyed Tennessee and Arizona squaring off. 

Much like with Gonzaga/Alabama (Alabama defeated the Zags a year ago), there was a little history between Tennessee and Arizona. A year ago the Vols defeated the Wildcats and enough players on each team were back for tonight's rematch that bad blood existed between these teams. 

I enjoy watching Arizona play, especially because it's such a pleasure to see how the once awkward Oumar Ballo has matured and developed into such a strong player and because their junior forward, Azuolas Tubelis is such a skilled and versatile forward. 

Tonight, Arizona prevailed, 75-70 in an emotional game. A fight almost broke out between the two teams after the game ending buzzer, but, fortunately, cooler influences intervened and both teams separated.

If Arizona and Tennessee meet again in the NCAA Tournament, it's going to be intense.

The same might be said if Gonzaga and Alabama should happen to face off again in March.

3. Yeah, yeah, maybe NBC/Golf Channel overplays their coverage of Tiger and Charlie Woods on the PNC Championship. 

But, you know what? I've enjoyed Tiger Woods as a father and the way he talks with and interacts with Charlie. I like the interactions I see between other of the golfers in this fun tournament with their parents or their kids and I like the good times they are having, but I haven't felt the disappointment in these other players that I've felt at times with Tiger Woods and, with his son, Tiger seems attentive and supportive in ways I might not have thought him capable several years ago. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-16-2022: Posting on Post, Fill in the Gaps, Burgers at the Elks

1. If you pay attention much to things happening in social media, you probably know that Twitter is going through some upheaval since Elon Musk took it over. For several years now, for me, Twitter has been a valuable source of ideas and insights. I follow quite a few contributors in the worlds of cinema, photography, baseball, college basketball, politics, social analysis and other areas who have expanded my thinking, helped me sort out questions that I wrestle with, and helped keep my perspectives fresh. Yes, I read snarky, smug, sarcastic posts on Twitter, and, yes, I read too much trolling, but I can zoom past this stuff and keep my eyes out for quality posts and threads. 

Right now, things at Twitter are in flux. Several of the people I follow are migrating away from Twitter and looking elsewhere online for platforms for discussions. 

A new emerging platform is called Post. It's in its beta stage. I decided a few weeks ago to put my name on the Post waiting list and today I joined. 

I'll continue to post my 3BTs on Twitter and I'll continue to read those contributors I follow who are continuing to post at Twitter. I'll also be trying to figure out which of the people I value at Twitter now have opened accounts at Post. (By the way, Post is not the only alternative to Twitter that people are joining, but, for now, I'm going to divide my time between Post and Twitter.)

I considered my first day on Post a success. Two different people read my 12-15-22 blog post and decided to follow me on Post and they both wrote kind comments about beef stroganoff and one of these people told me they have here in the Silver Valley. 

2. When I signed up for Post today, the form included a place to write a description of myself. It's a way of letting other people on Post get a peek into why I'm on this platform.

I wrote: "Looking to fill in the gaps . . ." 

My knowledge and understanding of things going on in the United States and elsewhere is very limited. 

Two developments in my life have created gaps I'm always looking to fill in.

First, I retired. 

I've loved retirement. I knew when I retired that I'd be created gaps in my life because I wouldn't be having daily conversations with friends I taught with nor with the students in my classes. 

In my work, I valued the great conversations I had with people I worked with. Some of us dined together. Russell and I shot pictures together. Other faculty friends and I talked regularly over coffee. I met regularly with a group of guys over beers. Our shared interests, yes, included our work in the classroom, but these friends helped expand my perspective on countless other interests we shared. 

My conversations with fellow faculty were both intellectual and personal. We were always in the process of working out ideas and exploring new territories, and, at the same time, we talked with each other about family life, relationships, our health, aging, and an array of other personal matters. All of these conversations helped me fill in gaps about things I was ignorant about or helped strengthen my understanding of things I knew a thing or two about.

Not working with students has opened different gaps in my life. Because I taught writing and literature courses, it was, at least in the way I approached these courses, inevitable that students wrote about things going on in their lives. I don't read or hear their stories any longer. Over the years, I learned about the pressures of poverty, the impact of verbal and physical violence in the home, the chaos brought on by drug addicted and drug dealing parents, the humiliations of working as dancers in "gentlemen's" clubs; I learned how oppressive and damaging unrelenting strictness in the home can be, how and why it becomes intolerable for some to live as a man and so begin the process of becoming a woman (and vice versa), and I learned more than I had ever known about the day to day lives of LGBTQ people in my classes, some from their writings, others from our conversations. I learned about what my students endured as loggers, CNAs, servers, cooks, dishwashers, and bartenders in restaurants and bars, and a wide range of other jobs. I learned about why some of my students loved guns and loved to hunt and learned from others who quit hunting and turned to photography. And there was a lot more. 

(You might think that from reading the paragraph I just wrote that my writing courses had some kind of political or social problem focus. They didn't. My writing courses focused on philosophical questions:what is happiness? what does it mean to live well? what is beauty? what is a self-examined life? what is the meaning of work? These questions led students to write about and want to talk about a wide array of experiences, many of them far outside my own.) 

I try to fill the gaps left by not being a faculty member and not working with students by reading people's stories and insights online. Twitter has been good for this -- we'll see about Post.

I wrote that two developments in my life have opened gaps in my life.

The second development involves our decision to move to Kellogg five years ago.

I'm an Episcopalian and the Silver Valley where I now live can no longer sustain a parish. For years, both Kellogg and Wallace had Episcopal churches, but over the years the Espiscopal Church wilted and now the closest Episcopal Church is St. Luke's in CdA. 

Until I decided back in March 2020 to spend most of my time at home, I had been driving over to CdA to worship about two or three times a morn to worship at St. Luke's. I'm cautious about driving over to CdA in the winter, but surely there will be Sundays that will feel safe.

I especially miss being in an Episcopal Church in the Advent season and for Christmas Eve services. 

I'm not looking to Twitter or Post or anything else online to fill this gap. 

I can't kneel at the Communion rail and partake of the Eucharistic bread and wine online and that's the gap I feel most acutely, especially at Christmas time. 

3. Ed swung by around 4:45 and we headed up to the Elks for Friday night burger night. I hadn't been out for nearly three weeks and I'm still not in the mood for drinking alcohol, but I sure enjoyed my burger, fries, and 7 Up. The Elks hall was packed with people I know! Jake and Carol Lee, Tim and Cindy, Bucky and Debbie, Maxine, Wanda, Phil, and Dale. I saw Marty and Kim across the room. Normally, Ed and I would hop across the street for a drink at The Lounge, but we decided to call it night once we finished our burgers and I settled into watching Marquette thump the steeply sliding Creighton Bluejays, 69-58. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-15-2022: Teeth Cleaned, Cooking Beef Stroganoff, The Making of *Tootsie*

1. After quick trip to Pinehurst Elementary to deliver some medicine to Debbie that I picked up for her at Yoke's, I arrived at the dentist's office and gave my plaque buildup and dental health over to the expert care of Kathy M. A few years ago -- and I'd had a similar arrangement in Eugene -- Kathy and I agreed that it would be smart for me to come in for cleanings every four months rather than every six months. Even though my dental hygiene habits are sound, I need more frequent cleanings and by following this plan, the cleanings have been easier for Kathy and more effective for me. 

I have old crowns, though, that need to be replaced. I've known this was coming for at least a couple of years and so I'll schedule that work to be done in 2023.

2. I've had a hankering lately for beef stroganoff. The other day, I made sure to pick up some sour cream at  Yoke's. Today, I thawed a package of ground beef, setting the stage to cook up a batch of stroganoff. 

Pardon my interruption, but in a perfect world, I would have used a better grade of beef. Debbie and I both, however, enjoy ground beef and since I had it on hand, I used it. Next time I make stroganoff, though, I'll buy sirloin or tenderloin and we'll have a slightly upgraded meal.

Okay. I got started by frying the ground beef seasoned with salt and pepper in about three tablespoons of unsalted butter. Once it was browned, I removed it from the Dutch oven and let it rest in a bowl. Next, I chopped up some red onion and cooked it for five minutes or so in the ground beef and butter fat and removed the onion and scooped it into the bowl of ground beef. 

I put more butter in the Dutch oven, let it melt, and then sautéed sliced and chopped mushrooms for about five minutes or so, seasoning the mushrooms with nutmeg and tarragon. 

I also started boiling a batch of rigatoni. 

When the mushrooms were cooked, I added a cup of sour cream to the mushrooms and blended them. I then added the ground beef and chopped onions to the mushrooms and sour cream and stirred it up. I thought it was a little thick and I added about a half a cup of pasta water and I thought some Worcestershire sauce would add depth to the stroganoff and so added about four shakes. 

That's it. I drained the pasta and Debbie and I enjoyed the stroganoff sauce on top of the rigatoni.

3. I watched more Criterion Channel supplementary material focused on Tootsie this evening. I learned a lot listening to Sydney Pollack about the multiple directorial challenges making Tootsie confronted him with, not the least of which was dealing daily with Dustin Hoffman. As an actor, Hoffman is highly analytical, full of insights about how he thinks things should be done, and he's consistently contentious -- but, ultimately cooperative. I enjoyed watching footage filmed live of Pollack and Hoffman ironing out disagreements, each intelligently explaining why he thought certain scenes should be played certain ways. It was fun to witness all of the analysis, ideas, and convictions Hoffman and Pollack had to work out and knowing what all this discussion resulted in when the final cut of the movie was completed. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-14-2022: Felt Good to Feel Good, Tomato Soup, Dustin Hoffman Interview

1. I will never enjoy shoveling snow, but if I have to do it, I sure prefer shoveling when I feel energetic, when I don't feel sick. We woke up today to a fresh snowfall and I felt no hesitation about shoveling our walks because I felt pretty great and once I got to work I wasn't besieged by fits of coughing and I wasn't blowing my nose every couple of minutes. I finished, returned to the house, and almost flexed my biceps like Mighty Mouse, but instead I just smiled and sat down and rested for a while.

2. I bought a couple of boxes of tomato soup today and heated up one of them and enjoyed it with saltine crackers. If the makers of this soup would just remove the cane sugar and about half the sodium from this soup, it would be perfect. But, I admit, imperfect as the soup was, it hit the spot and I'm glad I went for it.

 3. Much better this evening than watching UCLA totally dominate Maryland right down the road from where we used to live in Greenbelt was listening to a Criterion Channel videotaped interview with Dustin Hoffman talking about acting, himself as an actor, and the movie Tootsie. Debbie listened, too, and we had a talk afterward about men and women in movies that was fun and thoughtful and that I could see continuing in future conversations.

Three Beautiful Things 12-13-2022: Researching Eugene TV in 1980, Opening my Mind to Screwball Comedies, Alabama Prevails Over Memphis

 1. I felt recovered enough and energetic enough to drive to CdA today to take care of a handful of things that need some attention. But, wouldn't you know it, I got waylaid by an obsession. I cared a little too much about that program on cable tv in Eugene in 1980 called Phil's Philms featuring Holman the Poleman, Phil Holman. So, rather than spring into action and hit the road, I dove into the Eugene Register Guard archives via Google and, lo and behold, not only did I figure out the channel I tuned in to for Phil's Philms, I found the notice in the March 1, 1980 Register Guard of the first Phil's Philms I watched. It all came back to me. In 1980, one of the local cable television offerings was KOBI, Channel 5 in Medford. I thought earlier this week I'd watched Phil's Philms on a Eugene station, but, no, I watched it on the Medford station and the first movie I watched on his show was Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run. 

It's a small detail from my life forty-two years ago, living in the Westmoreland married student housing project in West Eugene, desperately hoping I could survive as a graduate student. 

Small detail, yes. 

A source of elation? 

Absolutely.

2. As I thought more today about KOZY-TV in Eugene and the old movies they played and about trips I used to make to Everybody's Records on 5th and Willamette to rent old movies (because they still carried rentals in the beta format) and as I thought about how much I loved Woody Allen's homage to screwball comedies and escapist cinema, The Purple Rose of Cairo, I also thought more about the short video I watched of Patton Oswalt reflecting upon screwball comedies.

His main point, especially for the contemporary movie watcher, is that a person has to approach these movies with an open mind. They are madcap plunges into absurdity, satire, confusion, snappy and witty language, and, most of all, into an adept blend of fantasy and realism. 

I surrendered myself to  Patton Oswalt's mild mandate and started my tour of screwball comedies with Howard Hawk's 1934 gem, Twentieth Century. 

On the face of it, Twentieth Century is about an egomaniacal theater impresario (John Barrymore) who brings an unformed, rawly talented leading lady into his theater company (Carole Lombard) and how their stunningly successful collaboration falls apart. 

Coincidentally, while her career soars and his plummets, they both happen to be on the same cross country train (the Twentieth Century) together and he begins a coast to coast effort to woo her back into his theater company.

The movie's electricity is powered by the merry war, the skirmishes of wit that take place between Barrymore and Lombard. But, at the same time, I enjoyed the devilish and often random hijinks of several supporting characters and comic bits they engage in as the Twentieth Century blasts across the USA. 

As I further scanned the Criterion Channel screwball comedy listings, I decided to watch an early Spencer Tracy outing Me and My Gal (1932) as he plays a law enforcement officer who falls in love with a waitress at a diner played by Joan Bennett. Raoul Walsh directed this movie, a blend of screwball wooing and mobster crime. Unlike Twentieth Century which is light, witty, full of slapstick gags, and whose mood only occasionally darkens, Me and My Gal combines a homicidal story line and Spencer Tracy's hunting down of an escaped convict with the nutty love story and some slapstick passages featuring a waterfront drunk and so the movie strikes fear in its audience while also giving us plenty to laugh and feel warm and fuzzy about.

3. In the midst of watching these chaotic comedies, I also tuned in to the Memphis/Alabama basketball game. I wanted to get an even clearer picture of Alabama's talent and style of play than I already had in anticipation of the Gonzaga/Alabama tilt on CBS Saturday morning at 10:00. 

Memphis gave Alabama a good test. Memphis exerted maximum effort, especially on defense, but they didn't have the firepower on offense to overcome Alabama's barrage of three pointers and their both powerful and cagey drives to the iron. 

Alabama prevailed, 91-88. 

If Gonzaga can put together an effort that tops Alabama, I'll be intrigued (and happy) to see it. In my mind, Gonzaga enters this game an underdog. I would like to be able to say what I think the Zags have to do beat Alabama, but I don't know (aside from score more points). Only if they do it will I be able to look back and say, "Ah! That's what it took!" 

Three Beautiful Things 12-12-2022: Zags Inspire Synonyms for Stagnant, KOZY and KOBI, Patton Oswalt Loves Screwball Comedies

 1.  Sluggish. Lackluster. Flat. Sleepy. Immature. They are certainly not a juggernaut. 

I've collected ways I, different friends, reporters, and Drew Timme himself described Gonzaga's effort, especially in the first half, against tonight's far inferior opponent, Northern Illinois University.

I mean, you look at the final score, 88-67, and, by that standard, yes, the Zags picked up a blow out win.

At halftime, however, the Zags only led by six points. They were shooting poorly, getting out hustled, and, to my bewilderment, at least, missing a lot of point blank shots inside.

Before the game started, I wrote in a Facebook comment to Byrdman that I didn't think this game would tell us much about the Zags and that I thought we'd see much more playing time for Malachi Smith, Hunter Sallis, Ben Gregg, and Efton Reid. Reid didn't play much, but the other three not only logged plenty of playing time, they all scored in double figures, with Gregg leading the off the bench effort with 18 points. 

Did I learn much about the Zags tonight, especially in anticipation of their very challenging game coming up on Saturday against Alabama?

I agree with Drew Timme's post-game comment that they regressed tonight. He also described this year's squad as a roller coaster, an imperfect team. All of that was on display tonight. 

I agree with the KHQ play-by-play/analyst team who repeated about 5000 times that the Zags are a work in progress.

I agree with Byrdman. This team is not a juggernaut.  (I never thought they were.)

Now the Zags fly to Birmingham for the C.M. Newton Classic and a matchup with a long and talented Alabama team focused on firing up three pointers or layups and few shots from anywhere else. The Tide defeated top-ranked Houston over the weekend. They face Memphis at home tonight. My guess is that they'll be primed on Saturday for the Zags, motivated to defeat them two years in a row.  As I see it, Gonzaga will have to play something like nearly flawless basketball to defeat Alabama. I don't know, right now, if the Zags have that in them. 

We'll see. 

2. I now regret that back in the 1980s I spent so much time as a graduate student on my studies, always fighting the feeling that I was an imposter and fearing that I didn't belong in grad school, that, aside from going to movies at Cinema 7 and the Bijou and going to football games at Autzen Stadium and the occasional basketball game at Mac Court,  I didn't do a lot of hanging out in Eugene. One place I wish I'd frequented was Lenny's Nosh Bar, but I have fun almost every day reading about all that I missed out on by belonging to the Long Live Lenny's Nosh Bar Facebook group.

Today, a post went up asking people if they remembered KOZY, a local Eugene cable television station, an awesome venture dedicated to showing movies and old television shows. Back in, oh, about 1985, I was a cable subscriber and I regularly studied at the U of O library until 10:00 p.m. and then rode my bicycle to my basement apartment on 361 West Broadway, popped myself a bowl of popcorn, and watched reruns of Father Knows Best and other tv shows from when I was a kid. 

KOZY also inspired me to take breaks from studying and watch old movies. Back then I loved watching Spencer Tracy movies and I had a special fondness for Leslie Howard's role in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934).

Remembering KOZY brought back another fun memory from 1980. On Saturday nights, the Medford television station, KOBI, Channel 5, a Eugene cable offering back then, played Phil's Philms. The host was a local radio personality and stunt man, Phil Holman (father of professional bowler, Marshall Holman). Holman gave some kind of introduction to the movie (I remember him playing Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run and, another time, the dance marthon movie, They Shoot Horses Don't They?). Holman featured himself at commercial breaks doing absurd bits that made me laugh -- so I enjoyed watching the movies and had fun seeing what stupid and outrageous things Phil Holman would break up the movies with. By the way, Phil Holman once did a pole sitting stunt in Medford and so, for some, his nickname was Holman the Poleman. 

If anyone who reads this blog had fun watching KOZY or if you, too, watched Phil Holman host his Saturday night movie program on KOBI Medford, it would sure be fun to read your memories. 

3. Again and again and again, I get fired up that I subscribe to the Criterion Channel. Right now, Criterion, among many other awesome collections, is featuring a generous trove of classic Screwball Comedies. I'm about to embark on watching some of them, thanks largely to an immensely informative and spirited short video presentation of Patton Oswalt reflecting on the genre. His enthusiasm for these movies and his wickedly sharp insights made me want to hole up for a few days and listen to the verbal sparring, enjoy the sexual intrigue, and watch the comic hijinks of movies ranging from It Happened One Night to To Be or Not to Be to The Palm Beach Story to mention a few. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-11-2022: Still Needed a Nap, *Run Lola Run* and Sweet Memories, Badgers and Hawkeyes in an OT Thriller

 1. I'm felt better again today and even let myself think that in a day or two I might be rid of this bug that's persisted for a couple of weeks. I went to Yoke's and stocked up on groceries, including more 7 Up and I bought some strawberry yogurt and Cheerios, a combination I have been craving. I felt great at Yoke's as I walked up and down the aisles, but when returned home and after I put the groceries away, I needed a nap. The nap felt great, especially with Luna perched on my chest, but I'm hoping in the next few days I can run small errands and not fall asleep upon completing them.

2. I had fun after sleeping a bit indulging in some nostalgia. Back in my days teaching World Lit at LCC, I used to show my students the German movie, Run, Lola Run (1998). It's a hyper paced movie driven by a pulsating soundtrack that plays out the same basic story three times, but because of small things that happen differently in each version, each has a different outcome. I enjoy this movie a lot and I enjoyed feeling again how I used to feel while sitting in the classroom watching it with the World Lit students. For the life of me, though, I cannot recall our discussions of the movie, what I said to the class about the movie, or how it fit in with the rest of the syllabus. 

It's been over ten years now since I last offered this course and all I have left is some strong and positive feelings about students I worked with, but not much memory at all of the course's content. 

3. Later, I tuned into the second half of what turned out to be a donnybrook between Iowa and Wisconsin. Iowa made a stirring comeback in the game's last minute or so to tie it up and, in the overtime period, Iowa surged to an early lead. But Wisconsin hung in there, chipped away, took the lead themselves, and persevered in OT to beat the Hawkeyes, 78-75.

I sure enjoy watching Big 10 schools play each other. The Big 10 conference season is barely under way and already we've seen Illinois get upset by Penn State, Nebraska nearly defeat Purdue in OT, and Wisconsin win two nail biters, first over Maryland and tonight over Iowa.

Why did the Big 10 teams play so intensely and entertainingly against each other a year ago and then fare poorly in the NCAA Tournament?

I don't know.

All I do know is that no matter how they perform in the Big Dance, when it comes to playing one another in December, January, February, and early March, it's intense and fun to watch when Big 10 teams square off. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-10-2022: 60s Gold, Streaky Arizona, BYU Hangs On

 1. Out of the blue, while Debbie and I were sitting in the living room, resting, continuing to try to get over  the coughing and sneezing, Debbie said she'd like to hear some music from the 60s. So, I put the station satellite radio station 60s Gold on and we listened, often laughed, and, other times, thought back sweetly to the wildly divergent kinds of music popular at that time. Debbie told me about her experience hearing The Beatles for the first time and how, for her, it changed everything. That was not true for me -- I was a fourth grader when I first heard The Beatles, and mostly I was baffled by knowing girls screamed when The Beatles played.

I can't really explain it, but the song that made the earth move under my feet, that changed everything both the first time I heard it and when I went to Wallace and bought the 45 RPM single was The Kinks', "All Day and All of the Night". 

Hearing it today, about fifty-eight years later, I once again felt the jolt of excitement and daring The Kinks inspired in me in 1964. 

2. I tuned into the Arizona/Indiana men's college basketball game from Las Vegas this afternoon and thought, "It sure must be fun to play for Tommy Lloyd!" The Wildcats are streaky, cocky, aggressive, and smart. They have snipers from three point land and great muscle and agility in the paint. When the Wildcats are on a running, gunning scoring streak, they look unbeatable with their versatility and overwhelming options for scoring. But, the 'Cats have some streaks when things aren't in synch and it was those streaks of missed shots and turnovers that opened the way for Indiana to play itself back into the game after being as many as 19 points behind.

In the end, Arizona prevailed, 89-75. Four of their players, two outside shooters and two inside post players, scored in double figures in a balanced and, at times, overwhelming offensive attack. (By the way, Indiana had five players in double figures. They also balanced inside and outside scoring, but just didn't have the jet-fueled power and speed of the Arizona Wildcats.)

3. I've been pulling for the Creighton Bluejays to win games for about four years now and, for me, it's been disappointing to witness their recent struggles. Coming into tonight's game against BYU, Creighton had lost three in a row. Two of those losses were to top 10 teams, Texas and Arizona, and the third to an apparently emergent Nebraska team who took Purdue into overtime today.

Could the Bluejays snap this skid against BYU? Well, it was going to be a stiff challenge, in large part because Creighton's center, Ryan Kalkbrenner, couldn't play because of a non-Covid illness. Creighton doesn't have a skilled or experienced player to back him up and as tonight's game progressed, BYU took advantage of Kalkbrenner being gone by funneling the ball inside and getting some great looks and scoring around the basket. But, BYU also made life very difficult for Creighton with its outside shooting, too. In particular, Rudy Williams came off the bench and lit up the Bluejays for 26 points.

Creighton hampered its own efforts when Arthur Kaluma, who was on a scoring spree as long as he was in the game, got into foul trouble and ended up being disqualified with about eight minutes left in the game. 

But Creighton is a scrapping team. They demonstrated this in their losses to Arizona and Texas and, again tonight, they forced BYU into a late game melt down and, in the last couple of minutes of the game, erased BYU's eleven point lead with pressure defense and converting free throws. 

But, BYU refused to lose and when their freshman, Dallin Hall, missed a shot at the tin with just seconds left in the game, he rebounded his miss and immediately put up a shot again, converted it, and it proved to be the game winner. 

I watched this game with an eye to the future, trying to imagine how Gonzaga and BYU might stack up against each other as the WCC schedule gets under way.

I have no idea.

The Bluejays were so compromised by Kalkbrenner's illness and Kaluma's early exit that I couldn't draw any meaningful parallels between Creighton and the Zags as an opponent of BYU's. 

My slate is blank on this question and I'll just see how the first Zags/BYU contest plays out when it rolls around on January 12th in Provo. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-09-2022: Shoveling Snow, Stocking Up at Yoke's, Zags Look Tough Against the Huskies

1. The fresh snow wasn't very deep, but I want to make it as easy as possible for our mail carrier and other delivery agents to get to our porch and Christy's. I felt a bit more energetic today and promised myself I wouldn't push myself and so I shoveled our walks and Christy's. 

2. I felt good after shoveling and clean myself up, changed clothes, and went to Yoke's, mainly to stock up on seltzer water, orange juice, limeade, 7 UP, and ginger ale. I get up about every. 60-90 minutes through the night needing more hydration and I like having a variety of different tasty liquids to choose from. 

I got the Sube unloaded, unpacked the groceries, and took a nap. It felt good to sleep with Luna on my chest and restore my energy after getting out and shoveling and shopping today.

3. I'm terrible at making comparisons and contrasts. It's just not how my mind works and I tend to be focused on the movie, basketball game, poem, plate of food or whatever I'm enjoying at the moment and don't think much about how it stacks up to previous ones. I'm really useless when I've gone out to eat and someone says, "Was the food there as good as at (fill in the blank)?" I almost never have an answer. 

I'm the same way as a fan of Gonzaga men's basketball.

If the conversation moves to whether the 2022-23 team is as good as a previous team, I pretty much fall silent. 

I'm focused on this team and, right now, I'm enjoying this squad a bit more all the time.

Tonight, the Zags played the Univ of Washington. When this game gets played, it always carries with it the subtext of Seattle/Western Washington vs Spokane/Eastern Washington and in this dichotomy, whether it's sports, politics, or anything else, the Spokane/Eastern Washington participants always cast themselves as the underdog, are always fighting to overcome the idea that Spokane/Eastern Washington is inferior to Seattle/Western Washington.

(By the way, when I lived in Eugene all those years, a similar dynamic always played out between the Univ of Washington (a.k.a. the Evil Empire) and the Univ. of Oregon, whether the competition was athletic or academic.)

Currently, the idea that that the Univ of Washington could be thought to be superior to Gonzaga in basketball is absurd. Coming in to tonight's game, over the last 20+ years,  the two teams have squared off 14 times and the Zags have won 13 of those games.

But even with this lopsided recent history, passions run high for this match up and that was evident in the early part of the game.

Both teams were unsettled. They had trouble scoring. Both teams' efforts were plagued with turnovers. The passion and effort was mighty, but neither team's performance was strong in the early stages of the first half.

Well, not so strong on offense. I'm starting to think that this Gonzaga team's strength might be its defense. The Zags survived their turnovers and missed shots early just fine because on defense they harassed the Huskies, kept their leading scorer from scoring, and relied on steals, deflections, and other forms of disruption to keep the Huskies from exploiting their poor start.

Drew Timme's defensive range is growing this year and tonight he played a lot of superb defense. Anton Watson continues to play strong, intelligent defense and is often assigned the other team's best forward or center to guard. The other starters are also playing tough and the Zags are getting superb defensive efforts off the bench, especially from Silas Hunter and, in my opinion, Malachi Smith. Ben Gregg has turned out to be much more ferocious on defense than I thought he would be. 

On offense, the Zags were not very sexy tonight, but after their slow start they were efficient. Drew Timme, in particular, got some U of W starters in foul trouble and, as the game progressed, the Zags created more and more ways to score inside against the Huskies' 2-3 matchup zone. I love it when Zags find open players cutting along the baseline and whip smart passes to the cutting player for a layup or a dunk. I got kind of fired up in the first half when seldom used 7 footer Efton Reid came off the bench for three minutes of playing time and snagged two rebounds, scored on a jump hook from in front of the basket and also converted a layup in traffic. It was only a three minute stint, but, in my opinion, like his teammates, Reid played with great energy and grit.

One last toss of spaghetti against the wall. Let's see if it sticks.

The Zags have been an improved team, especially on defense, since their loss to Baylor. I don't know what they talked about afterward, what Mark Few might have pointed out to them as things they could learn from that disappointing loss, but in the two subsequent games the Zags have played with more intensity, especially on defense. If this defensive effort continues and grows, it will be great for the Zags who, on offense, have many spurts of really good play, but suffer droughts as well. Solid defense helps teams endure such droughts. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-08-2022: Stubborn Bug, Great Leftovers, I Go On Strike for a Day

1. I know I'm at the end of this illness I've had for nearly two weeks, but, as I've experienced over the years, the infection is stubborn and while I felt well enough to get some things done around the house today, I also fell asleep every time I sat down to take a rest.

2. Debbie added black beans to the sauce I made yesterday and she cooked up some spaghetti and I enjoyed this transforming of leftovers a lot. My appetite is diminished, but it makes me think it's a good idea to be eating food in small portions. My digestive system has been much more comfortable.

3. It is a small thing, but it's about all I could do. I supported the employee walk out at the New York Times today by not playing Wordle. Employees at the Times sent out pleas on Twitter asking NYTimes subscribers, like me, not to cross the digital picket line. I figured it was the least I could do.  

Three Beautiful Things 12-07-2022: Completing Tasks, Infected Taste Buds?, Revisiting *Cutter's Way* (1981)

1. I continue to recover my health. Breathing is easier. I am coughing and rattling some, but less frequently. I continue to fall asleep for short stretches. I use up about one handkerchief a day, but the blowing isn't constant nor is the sneezing. 

I paid our bills, a task I'd been putting off until I felt better and I've taken both cars to Silver Valley Tire to have the wheels retorqued after having snow tires put on them. 

2. This illness has affected my taste buds. I'm not experiencing tastelessness, but everything, from coffee to salmon patties to broccoli to the soups we've been eating all have a funny taste to them. So, today, I made a batch of pasta sauce so Debbie I could have spaghetti for dinner and, to me, the sauce tasted a little bit funny. Debbie didn't mention the sauce tasting a little odd to her, so I'm thinking that I'm having a short period of time during this illness when everything has, for lack of a better description, a little taste of infection.

3. I rewatched one of my favorite movies, Cutter's Way (1981), this evening. It's dark, a neonoir murder story rich with any number of ways to understand it. I lean toward the existential. The three main characters, Richard Bone, a supremely handsome gigolo and drifter played by Jeff Bridges, Alex Cutter, a one-eyed maimed and alcoholic veteran of the Viet Nam War, played by John Heard, and Maureen "Mo" Cutter, Alex's alcoholic wife played by Lisa Eichhorn live together in a state of ennui. They are bored, listless, aimless. Everything changes when Richard Bone's car dies in an alley and then another car drives into the alley and an occupant of that car dumps a teenage murder victim into a garbage can.

When Alex hears Richard Bone's story, he becomes obsessed with pinning the murder on a Santa Barbara oil magnate, J. J. Cord.

An existential crisis grows. The question of who committed the murders became much less interesting to me than what this terrible murder does to peel back layers of each character's inward insulation and tests them as to how they will act (or not act) in their pursuit of exposing the murderer.

I'll leave it that except to say that the casting in this movie is brilliant. It's by far, to me, the best work John Heard ever did over his expansive acting career.  Jeff Bridges plays the vacuous Richard Bone perfectly. I don't think I've ever seen a more thoroughly convincing portrayal of ennui, alcoholism, loneliness, cynicism, longing, resignation, and confinement than Lisa Eichhorn's bringing of Mo Cutter to life.

This is not an uplifting movie, but it so exquisitely explores these lost and unmoored characters that it develops a rare and disturbing beauty, a troubling insight into purposeless existence. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-06-2022: Shoveled Some Snow, OT Thriller at the NYC Basketball Mecca, Terps Fall at Kohl

 1. Okay. The snow on the sidewalks was powdery, requiring little effort to clear it off. All the same, I hadn't done any kind of real activity for ten days and I went out and removed this light snow from the sidewalks. Yes, I coughed some. Yes, I took a nap when I was finished. But, it was a good sign that I'm getting back some energy.

2. I enjoyed watching the Univ of Illinois scrap from behind in the late second half against Texas at Madison Square Garden and somehow even the score by the end of regulation. I thought Illinois was sunk, but toward the end of the game they began to wrestle free from Texas's tight defense, find shots and and make them, and put their own defensive clamps on the Longhorns. These were two very enjoyable teams to watch play so hard against each other. I was very impressed, then, when Illinois' Terrance Shannon, Jr. awoke from a nearly game long slumber in the OT period and not only began sinking shots, but was the team leader as Illinois inched its way to victory, 85-78 in OT.

3. Friday I'd watched my former down the road team, Maryland, squeeze out a tough 71-66 win at home against Illinois. This evening, the Terrapins were on the road, playing Wisconsin in the very challenging Kohl Center. Maryland is playing its first season under former Seton Hall Head Coach, Kevin Willard and the team is composed of several transfer players, all getting to know each other in a new system. They've made fairly speedy progress, but it's in contrast to the Wisconsin program where Greg Gard has been the head coach since 2015 and had served the previous fourteen years as Bo Ryan's chief assistant. In other words, he's been on the Badger sideline now for over 20 years.

I can't quite describe the imprint Greg Gard stamps on his teams. I can say that his teams are somewhat deliberate in their tempo, but not unwilling to get out into the open court. They are schooled defensively and even when they seemed outsized by opponents, always play stout defense. 

Because they play at a deliberate speed, their games tend to be somewhat low scoring and it's rare to see Wisconsin ever get blown out of a game. Part of their team identity seems to be an ability to stay close in games and turn the games in their favor late.

Such was the case last night. Wisconsin held a slim 31-29 lead at half time and hung on throughout the second half, staving off every Maryland comeback, and beat the Terrapins 64-59.

Three Beautiful Things 12-05-2022: *Searching for Sugar Man*, *Searching for Mr. Rugoff*, Zags Defeat Kent State

 1. By accident or coincidence, today became "Searching for" day in the Vizio room. I decided this afternoon to browse the Criterion Channel's copious offering of documentaries. I don't know why I've passed by Searching for Sugar Man (2012) so many times over the last 9-10 years. I didn't see it when it played in Eugene and, even after it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 2013 ceremony, I passed it by time after time.

Today all that changed. I watched this absorbing story about two men in South Africa who decided to go in search of the story of whatever happened to Rodriquez, a Detroit singer/songwriter whose two albums never gained an audience in the USA, but was wildly popular in South Africa in the mid-1970s. 

I will fill in no blanks about the story. I was thrilled that I'd managed to keep myself in the dark about the details of this movie over the last ten years and I had a most satisfying experience watching this story unfold in the movie today.

2. The second "Searching for" movie I watched is entitled, Searching for Mr. Rugoff (2019). It tells the story of Donald Rugoff, the innovative owner of Cinema 5, the Upper East Side movie theater chain, and highly influential and powerful movie distributor who not only was the architect of what would become the modern art cinema house, but worked to bring American and European independent movies into the mainstream. 

Until today, I hadn't thought at all about the fact that those art house movies I enjoyed so much in my twenties and on into my thirties at Spokane's Magic Lantern, Eugene's Cinema 7, and Eugene's Bijou Theater all needed some kind of promotional campaign, needed someone to market these movies, to persuade people to come out and see them.

Donald Rugoff wasn't the sole such promoter of independent movies, but he was a pioneer and this documentary tells the story of his relentless drive to elevate the movie going experience in the USA, both in the quality of movies being screened and the beauty of the movie houses where they play.

It's incredible that I can click on so many different kinds of movies and watch them, thanks to various streaming services. 

I get that.

And, of course, I never lived in Manhattan and, of course, I never went to a movie in any of Donald Rugoff's exquisite movie theaters: the Beekman, the Sutton, the Plaza, the Paramount, the Gramercy, or Cinema I and Cinema II. 

The art houses I attended were built and run on shoestring budgets. While The Magic Lantern, Cinema 7, and The Bijou lacked elegance, for me, they had charm, the charm created by hosting a devoted movie going audience that wanted to see off the beaten track movies succeed and were more than willing to watch these movies in far from elegant little auditoriums. 

I wanted to be back in those movie houses today and reflected a lot on the many wonderful movies I saw in those places.

3.  Gonzaga hosted Kent State this evening, winning the contest 73-66. Gonzaga relied on Drew Timme to do much of tonight's heavy lifting. Timme scored 29 points, snagged 17 rebounds, dished out 4 assists, and contributed a very timely blocked shot late in the game. Against Kent State, the Zags played steadier down the stretch and got key baskets from Julian Strawther and Malachi Smith along with a couple of stout defensive plays by Hunter Sallis. 

Three Beautiful Things 12--04-2022: Recovery, It's Not Just Another Party, Death and Diddling in *Waking Ned Devine*

1. It's Sunday, Dec. 4th. I suddenly started honking big coughs, five or six at a time, on the evening of Nov. 26th. I started needing long periods of sleep and, over time, sneezing accompanied the coughing. On Sunday, Dec. 4th, the coughing problem has subsided, almost gone away. But I'm clearing congestion out of my nasal passages every 20-30 minutes. I'm not nearly as tired, although even as I sit in the Vizio room, I nod off from time to time. Resting and hydrating seem to help. I'm being patient. I think my recovery is moving in the right direction. 

2. I sent out emails today to different friends telling them I wouldn't be in Eugene Wednesday for Linda's retirement party. I also wanted Kathleen to know I wouldn't be staying at her house while she's back east. I didn't want to cancel my trip. Sure, I'll be going to Portland and Eugene another time. I hope as early as possible in 2023, but I'm very disappointed to be missing Linda's retirement party.  Any number of people I worked with and enjoyed over many, many years at LCC will be celebrating Linda's retirement and, much like the awesome back yard party we had at the Dane's in 2018 for Michael and Lynn's retirement, it would have been a source of immeasurable joy to be a part of another reunion of people I worked with at LCC. 

I realize I can meet up with Linda on our own and we can celebrate her retirement at a later date.

But the event of her retirement party, the collective outpouring of our gratitude and admiration for Linda, our joining together to wish her the very best as she embarks on her years of retirement, the opportunity to be with so many people from LCC I remember dearly, this experience on Dec 7 cannot be replicated and I'm aggrieved I'll be missing it. 

3. After feeling wistful writing these emails, I decided to watch the movie, Waking Ned Devine (1998). 

For the life of me, I don't know why I didn't see this movie when it came out nor do I know why I never rented it until this evening. I remember hearing movie lovers at McMenamin's High Street Pub, no doubt on Wednesdays nights when I regularly dropped in for a pint or two after teaching my evening Shakespeare class, talking about the movie. They loved it. 

But I didn't see it until tonight.

It's a nearly perfectly realized expression of comic release. In the nearly enchanted world of a tiny Irish village, the citizens are almost magically released from the usual conventions of law, honesty, and rules when one of their own, Ned Devine, wins the Irish National Lottery and dies of shock upon discovering he's holding the winning ticket.

A professor I studied under at the Univ of Oregon, Clark Griffith, used to refer to deceit in fiction as "diddling". He was particularly insightful about Mark Twain's diddling stories.

I thought of Clark Griffith while watching this movie as, in the community driven spirit of comedy, the villagers collectively agree to diddle the Lottery inspector so they can collect the lottery winnings of a dead man.

As in any conventional comedy, the story also features a blocking figure, a villager unwilling to play along and if this enriching diddle is going to succeed, her efforts to thwart them must be defeated.

Conventionally, tragedies end in death and comedies conclude with marriage and mirthful celebration - a feast maybe, with plenty of drink, or a community dances together, or people join together in song or making music.

I won't give away how this comedy ends, but the spirit and rhythm of this story's progression all hinges on the always present corpse of Ned Devine. 

It's a comedy sprung to life by Ned Devine's sudden death. 

Three Beautiful Things 12-03-2022: Shower and a Deep Nap, *Unfaithfully Yours* (1948), Learning More About Preston Sturges

 1. Today after I showered, I dried off and lay down. I thought I'd just take a short rest but I fell into a deep sleep, oblivious to time, and I'm not sure if I slept for 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or maybe even two hours. It was restorative, though, and helped me feel better today.

2. A couple weeks ago, Bill and Diane had just watched the Preston Sturges movie, Unfaithfully Yours (1948), and wondered if I'd seen it. I hadn't.  I've heard so much about Sturges over the years, and I'm not sure I've ever seen any any of his movies, although I might have watched Hail the Conquering Hero 35-40 years ago. 

This evening, I changed that.

Unfaithfully Yours features Rex Harrison as an orchestra conductor who comes to believe his wife (played by Linda Darnell) has cheated on him.

It is a movie exploring jealousy.

Stories about jealousy, as I see it, straddle any line that might divide farce and tragedy.

Jealousy transforms men and women into farcical, even if dangerous, and hapless beings. They become obsessed, unable to control their imaginations, crude, and sometimes menacing -- in short,  parodies of themselves.

I don't know if Preston Sturges would describe the nature of jealousy the way I just did, but I do know that as this movie's screenwriter and director, he created a black screwball comedy. The story moves us inside Rex Harrison's character's consciousness where revenge fantasies, inspired by his jealousy and the musical pieces he conducts, occupy his mind, moving this story to the brink of tragedy.

Near the end of the movie, the clutter and confusion in and the fragile nature of Harrison's character's jealous mind takes physical form in a blissfully drawn out scene in his apartment as he accidentally breaks furniture, gets tangled up in wires, knocks objects to the floor that shatter, accidentally shatters a sliding glass door, and goes to battle with a record playing and sound recording machine.

I love that it seems this scene will never end. I love that it parallels an earlier scene featuring a wastebasket fire in the same apartment, another way Sturges uses a physically chaotic scene to give us an outward experience of the inward chaos (and fire) within the character Rex Harrison plays.

It might seem like I've given a lot of the movie away here, but, believe me, I haven't. To discover how the jealousy comes about, what the revenge fantasies are, to experience the superb supporting roles (like the Handel loving detective), and to find out how this screwball black comedy is finally resolved, you'll have to watch the movie yourself.

3. Until I went to sleep, I spent the rest of the evening watching interviews on the Criterion Channel about Preston Sturges and started a PBS documentary about him entitled, Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer.

Three Beautiful Things 12-02-2022: Fog Lightens, Zags Can't Seal the Deal, Maryland Can Seal the Deal

 1. The fog bank of fatigue that has been weighing on me over the past five days or so lightened up a bit today and I started to get hints of not feeling so draggy and weak.

2. I was eager to watch Baylor and Gonzaga square off today in that replica of 1950s high school gymnasium in Sioux City called the Sanford Pentagon. I decided to go ahead and subscribe to Peacock's premium service so I could watch it. I ran into a small glitch when I tried to do so,  then figured out a way to overcome that glitch, and so, when my Peacock service began, I started watching early in the first half and Baylor had streaked to an early 19-7 lead.

I didn't know what to think, but it looked like a blowout could be under way.

Such was not the case. 

For the rest of the first half and as the second half developed, I was impressed with the Zags' intensity, their fight, their willingness to mix it up physically with Baylor.

And the Zags came back and not only made the game close, but seized the lead in the second half.

In fact, the Zags led by seven point with just 1:38 remaining.

And then the one most glaring weakness in the Zags' offensive game got exposed.

They needed a confident and poised point guard to guide them in the game's last minute and a half, but, right now, there is no such player on the Zags' roster.

The Zags became tentative, turned the ball over, and couldn't/didn't stop Baylor's Adam Flagler from making two heroic and clutch three point jumpers. In a late game scramble for a loose ball, Drew Timme got called for a foul -- the replay showed that Baylor's Jalen Bridges may have been fouled, but not by Timme. But, Timme fouled out. Bridges' free throws put Baylor ahead by a point, 64-63, the game's final score as it turned out. 

The Zags once again turned the ball over but then forced a Baylor turnover themselves.

Behind a point with 13 seconds to go, the Zags couldn't/didn't create a good shot for anyone and Rasir Bolton, possibly trying to draw a foul, threw a wild shot toward the tin that missed badly. Then with five seconds to go, the Zags forced another turnover, but once again could not or did not create a good shot.

The Zags have a little over three months worth of basketball games yet to play.

Can they, over that period of time, overcome this point guard problem, overcome the tentativeness and uncertainty handling the basketball in pressure situations? It's what plagued the Zags at game's end tonight. 

I don't know the answer. I would think tonight's loss was scarring, might have created self-doubt among the Zags, or, at the very least, left the team wondering who its ball handling leader could possibly be. 

(Oh! The Zags only made 13 of their 21 free throw attempts. Making their free throws would have helped them to victory tonight.)

(One other thing. Baylor stifled Drew Timme. With Timme drawing so much of Baylor's defensive attention, the Zags' Strawther, Bolton, and Hickman had plenty of opportunities to score. The Zags needed more than 10 points from Strawther. They needed more than eight points from Bolton. Hickman didn't score at all. That really hurt the Zags.)

To conclude: in terms of effort, determination, toughness, willingness to scrap, and overall fight and intensity, I thought this was Gonzaga's strongest game.

It was hard to see their guards look in over their heads in the last 1:30.

3. In contrast to Gonzaga's late game woes against Baylor, my former "home team" Maryland Terrapins demonstrated sureness and calm in their last minute victory over Illinois.

Illinois is a stout and talented squad and over the last several minutes of last night's tilt they reduced Maryland's double digit lead down to a single point with about 42 seconds to play. Maryland ran the clock down to about 28 seconds, called a time out, and Kevin Willard sent his troops back on the floor. 

Maryland's Jahmir Young performed brilliantly under the late game pressure.

He created space for himself, lifted up to launch a three point shot with 14 seconds remaining, and buried it, securing Maryland's eventual 71-66 win.

No confusion.

No insecurity.

No self-doubt. 

It's this kind of take charge clutch play that Gonzaga has got to hope its staff can help develop in at least one of their guards, whether Smith, Bolton, or Hickman.

I'll be staying tuned.