Daily Archives: May 29, 2010

Cinema and Television

Goya’s Ghosts

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Beltane                                 Full Planting Moon

I often see movies well past their sell-by date.  Tonight, for instance, I got around to seeing Goya’s Ghosts, a Milo Foreman piece from 2006.  This has Javier Bardem, Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgaard as Goya.  It must have been so named because the character Goya seems to have a very slight role in the movie, a go-between role between the church and the daughter of a wealthy family arrested by the Holy Office, aka the Inquistion, aka the predecessor office to the last job held by the current Pope, Benedict.

How dangerous it is to have dogmatic or ideological people in power.  With no need for evidence or facts, with no system of truth seeking committed to verifiability the church, the monarchy and the aristocracy can be confident in their decisions with no checks or balances.  Goya’s Ghosts shows that much better than it shows much about Goya either as a man or an artist.

It does show the suffocating nature of unchecked, self-righteous power as it also shows the dramatic political and military events through which Goya lived, again without illuminating Goya’s life.  A strange set of choices.

As a costume drama focused on the turmoil of Europe in the late 18th and early 19th century, the movie worked for me.  As anything about Goya, it did not.

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Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Holidays, Humanities, Weather +Climate

The Residue of Sacred Time

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Beltane                                           Full Planting Moon

I’ve done some weeding, well, a good bit of weeding, but the heat, now 89 and direct, drove me back inside.  At least the dew point is reasonable, but over 80 and I begin to wilt.  Three cheers for central air conditioning.  Over the years I’ve adapted to the Norwegian lifestyle, that is, living like we were in Norway with no windows or doors.  Now it’s important to me.

That holiday penumbra has fallen over time, a sense that fireworks and hot dogs, or gods on pedestals carried by shouting crowds, or parades with car after car of  young women doing the wave or a hushed night filled with candles and quiet might break out at any moment.   Sacred time comes to us in many guises and its residue, as we grow older, collects on our soul, offering us a taste of eternity each holiday, birthday, anniversary.  This residue is one of the unexpected and great joys of aging.  I can hear the marching bands passing, the quiet congregation praying, family members talking while decorating the offrenda, the winter winds howling on a solstice night.

A weekend to remember.

Great Work, Politics

Pssst. Hey, Buddy! Wanna See An Oil Spill?

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Beltane                                     Full Planting Moon

I’ve tried various ways to embed this here, but couldn’t succeed.  This is a link to a curious p.r. move by BP, a live video feed of the oil as it gushes out of the broken well head.  There is, too, a clicker that gives news about the quantity of oil released by the hour, since the accident and projected into the future.

horizon-oil-spill.html

Media, Memories

A Drive Down Mainstreet of My Hometown

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Beltane                                      Full Planting Moon

Ah, the internet.  It can suck you in and keep you in place longer than you intended.  I found this quirky video, a drive on Harrison Street, the main street of Alexandria.  If you notice the Masonic Lodge he shows about halfway through, our house was just behind it, flanked by two nearby funeral homes.

The character who took this I don’t know, but he’s real familiar anyhow.

Aging, Friends, Garden, Memories

Small Towns

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Beltane                                             Full Planting Moon

As a cold winds down, the body’s defenses leave sludge from the war behind, most of it right now parked  behind my cheek bones.  I don’t know whether I really haven’t had a cold in two years or whether my memory isn’t what it was, but I know it’s been a while.  I remember why I don’t like being sick each time I get sick.  It feels yucky.  My plan is, next cold, 2012, just in time for the apocalypse.

A classmate from Alexandria High wrote on my facebook wall inquiring about my health.  Larry Maple has gone to a lot of effort planning a big reunion for our class, our 45th, this fall.  To have someone from home ask about my health created an unexpected warmth.  In a small town like Alexandria people know you, know how you are, care about how you are.  These small gestures, inquiring about health, being aware of a child’s graduation or birthday, remembering communal events create a web of concern that is community.

(Larry volunteers here, as did my Dad.)

In the teenage years this scrutiny can seem overwhelming and intrusive, invasive, so it’s no surprise that many small town teens, myself included, can’t wait to leave and to leave for a more anonymous environment like a big city or a big college campus.  As we age, though, those small gestures can make the actual difference between health and illness.  Then, the small town doesn’t seem invasive, rather it seems supportive and caring.

Of course, neither end of the continuum is the truth.  Small towns are networks of caring; they are also webs of prejudice and rigidity where your past never leaves.

To the weed front.  With hoe and clippers.