Winter Moon of the Long Nights
The new year is 15 days underway. Kate and I have been sick now for a fifth of that. Campylobacter she says. Not life threatening. Not the flu. But damned inconvenient. Big fun.
Last night was a Tony’s Market meal, scallops and salmon patties with twice baked potatoes and Italian roasted vegetables. We’ve decided to cook our own fancy meals, saving literally hundreds of dollars each time. My scallop recipe, which I printed out, was in tiny, tiny print and I had to squint the whole time. Why I did that to myself, I don’t know.
If you have Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, I can recommend three shows: Black Mirror on Netflix, Humans and Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams on Amazon Prime. All three are science fiction, all dystopian to one degree or another, but each is wonderful.
Of the three, Humans is one I would recommend even to someone who doesn’t like science fiction. It’s powerful. A U.K. version of a Swedish original, it chronicles the gradual integration of synthetic humans into society. Though it could take a single perspective, say the Skynet notion from the Robocop series where the synths (the shorthand used in the series) are evil or at least tend that way, it does not.
Some synths are domestic help, often loved by their owners. Others are industrial models. Some work in restaurants. In some instances synths have begun movement up the occupational ladder, taking more and more responsible jobs, putting mid-level managers out of work. A few, a handful at first, are conscious.
As more synths become self-aware, a struggle begins between synths who simply want to integrate into human society and live their lives and those who believe humans will never accept them and must be fought. There is no one attitude among the synths just as their is no one attitude among humans toward synths.
The second season built on a strong first season, expanding the complexity and emotional conflicts developed in season one. I don’t want to describe it more, spoilers are poor form; but, it’s worth your time.
Movie recommendation: Coco. A pixar film. Gabe and I went to see it. I loved this film so much that I’ll certainly buy it when it comes out on DVD and I will go see it again. Something I rarely do.
The day after the day after. See, there’s the sneaky part of our language. This is the day after the day after Thanksgiving. Yet, really, this is another day, neither after nor before, just a day on its own. Yes, it’s a little further along the third planet’s track around the sun, but it’s a spot on the orbit, so different than yesterday and tomorrow, but no different as a day than either of them save for the slightly less light occasioned by the planet’s tilt, now away from the sun for those of us in the northern hemisphere.
Anyhow leftover capon, pancetta and fig stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie and caramelized sweet potatoes, pecan pie and deviled eggs rest in the fridge, awaiting their moment. The slow and the stuffed have gotten up off the couches, the beds, the chairs and started to move around again within their lives.
Jon, Ruth and Gabe and I went to Katsu Ramen for lunch. It’s close to their house, sort of, and I’ve wanted to eat there for a while. Ramen places are a very typical Japanese restaurant, more common there, I imagine, than sushi ones, because ramen is food for the masses, a sort of fast food. “Tampopo”, a Japanese movie from the mid-1980’s, features two truck drivers who learn how to cook great noodles.
Marvel has expanded its media presence to both movies and television. Spider Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Iron Man all have at least one movie, some many more than that. Now on television Marvel has pulled off a rather stunning feat, populating streaming services like Netflix and Hulu with original made for television serials featuring many other Marvel characters. Right now you can watch (and I do) Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, the Punisher, the Gifted, the Runaways, the Inhumans, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Defenders and Peggy Carter.
Down the hill at 8 a.m. yesterday to deliver the Rav4 for detailing and air conditioner help. They pay for a rental from Enterprise so I took the shuttle over there. “Is a Challenger, o.k.? Looks like you lucked out.” Yep. Got an all white chunk of Detroit iron, a real muscle car. First time I’ve driven something with a V-8 in a very long time.
Kate went in with me to pick up the Rav4. She looked tiny in the Challenger’s passenger seat. A movie and dinner after picking up a cleaned up, cool vehicle.
Dark ecology. I’ll post more about this both here and on AncientrailsGreatwheel.com, but it interests me a lot right now. It’s a contrarian view of the climate crisis, but not in a denier vein. These are folks who accept climate science, but take a pessimists look at the likelihood of change, at least change sufficient to stave off disaster. They don’t see it happening. This could be equated to the final stage of the grief process, acceptance.
I’m not familiar enough now with the movement to comment in depth, but the tone of it strikes a chord in me. Admittedly, it’s a melancholy chord though the more you know about both climate science and the current political will to tackle change, the more that chord may come to dominate the melody of your life. It’s either brave, facing reality in spite of its horror, or defeatist. Maybe it’s both.
Looking for light in prison. An assignment for the kabbalah class tonight. Rabbi Jamie suggested watching a movie like Hurricane, about Rubin Carter. I thought of MLK and Letters from the Birmingham Jail and Nelson Mandela, too. Then I remembered a portion of the 
Finally, nine years later, Devaki is pregnant again, this time with the eighth son Kansa dreaded. This son is Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu.
So I told them both about the horse drawn wagon that delivered our milk. “We had insulated boxes on the front porch and the milkman would run up with a wire carrier that held the milk, cream, butter, whatever. While he delivered to the house next door, the horse would pull the cart in front our house so he could be more efficient in his work. Horses are smart; trucks aren’t.” Of course, this last statement may not stand much longer, but that’s what happens when time passes. The expression on their faces was priceless.
“Well, there were about 25 kids my age on my block and we played together almost every night, especially in the summer. We’d play kick the can, hide and seek.”
I’ve also come to enjoy for its own sake the peculiar Bollywood film-making style. Technically, Baahubali is not Bollywood made, but it is in the Bollywood style. That style inevitably includes several elaborate song and dance numbers, often coming at odd junctures in the story, at least odd to this mountain man raised in the Midwest.
There is a 
