Corvallis Walking Tours

    Rumilluminations April 2015

    Written by

    Esther Powell

    April 30, 2015                                             Madison, IN

    It’s weird how often I have an idea which is dealt with in reading or viewing I do within the next few days (or hours!)
    I was thinking today about the difficulty and complexity of life (which is what Detachment about) but I took my thoughts a little further.
    People don’t want to acknowledge that life is not simple and we try to escape the fact that it is problematic in the extreme. It occurred to me today that is why we want a God. Make it all his problem!
    Oh, have I said this before? Maybe I have. Sorry.

    *Detachment  Excellent film about the state of the schools and our souls from the point of view of a high school substitute teacher – which description makes it sound like a documentary. It’s not, it’s not.

    April 29, 2015                                              Madison, IN

    I’ve been experiencing drivers as being much more careless and aggressive in recent years than in the past and have blamed the town’s citizenry. According to some TV news channels, though, this is becoming widespread in this country. They were specifically addressing the behavior of drivers around school buses.
    Evidently they are failing to stop as required by law when the bus has its lights flashing and its stop signs out. Some children have narrowly missed being hit at high speeds.
    Are these drivers so distracted and hurried that they can’t see anything?
    Are they psychopaths who simply do not care?
    Are they so brainwashed by insane movie chases, cartoons and video games that they literally don’t believe in consequences?
    One thing seems clear, at least. Since I last wrote about this problem years ago the problem has worsened.
    More the fools we.
    Slow down, drivers! Caring is more fun than crying.

    *Thorne: Scaredy Cat  This one perplexed us. That was fun. But boy, I hope the vast majority of police aren’t so – but no, I don’t want to ruin it for you!

    April 28, 2015                                            Madison, IN

    Tricks my mind plays on me more now that I’m getting older (and/ or more confused) include mistaking what I have thought of doing with what I have actually done. It works both ways: sometimes I just think about some chore – I intend to do it – and I think it is already done when it is not. Other times I think I still have to do something I already did on automatic pilot.
    These are not big important errands or tasks. They’re just little things. It is no big deal, really, but once we start noticing that we are doing it most people, I think, start feeling that we have to cover it up. I don’t want to make too much of it, but just want to acknowledge that it’s happening.
    That and trying to say "calendar" and saying "catalog" instead are really signs of neurons misfiring or going down the primrose path of fallacious connections. This one is, as I recall, one of the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
    Kind of depressing. The folly of advancing years was not exactly the kind of folly I was planning to indulge in when April Fool’s day rolled around this year.
    That seems to be, though, what I’m experiencing. Not the manic high of the return of the light but perhaps the sobering vision of improved sight.

    ¥ After Birth  At last an honest account of new motherhood by a zany if not insane intelligent woman. Not always pretty but very smart and funny. I want to suggest it for our book club but I’m afraid too many people couldn’t cope with Elisa Albert‘s language. Too bad because this is the realest.

    ¥The Confabulist  Steven Galloway‘s Houdini novel. I had no idea – but no, I don’t want to ruin it for you. There’s a good deal of interest in this work. 

    *Matters Arising makes this movie sound as if it might have some panache, but it doesn’t live up to its title. Too bad.

    *The Double  As when I read Dostoyevsky’s novella years ago, I am astounded by the seeming modernity of his theme. Definitely a weird film and I don’t have a solution to it as I thought I had when I read it. Cannot believe that Dostoyevsky’s life was spent entirely in the nineteenth century.
    *Lost Angels  Documentary about Los Angeles’ skid row that indirectly sheds light on what is happening all over the country. Reminds me of J.D. Salinger’s phrase "in love and squalor."

    April 27, 2015                                         Madison, IN

    Now that I know a little more about how the brain works I can see a bit more about what old age (and/or genetics or imperfect nutrition and exercise habits or environmental toxins) are doing to me.
    The direction in which you reach your arm or send your body to get what you need for a task is dependent on what neurons fire and it is a statistical phenomenon. Lately I’ve been off. I’ll head to area of the kitchen near the bedroom door to get a clean dish towel and find myself through the bedroom door. I overshot my goal.
    I’ll put my hand over toward the silverware section of the dish drain and find my hand fumbling around amid the plastic storage containers.
    My perceptions, too, are jacked around. According to people who have studied law enforcement, everyone has problems with this. Well, in this respect I might be more aware than most; I’ve known since my thirties I wouldn’t make a very good witness. It just turns out that most of us aren’t.
    This is small comfort when I catch myself at misperception and it seems as if is happening more often than I’m used to.
    The only comfort is (or maybe it’s not) is that I’m no worse – that’s only my perception!
    Sigh. I reach up in puzzlement to scratch my head. Or shoulder.
    Whatever.

    April 26, 2015                                        Madison, IN

    Is this the month of folly? April seems to be playing it straight for once.
    But ha! There are still four days left. Plenty of time for slinky reversals, comic rehearsals, frenzy and flippancy in this springiest of months.

    Aargh! What am I thinking? So me-ocentric! Horrible earthquakes in Nepal killing thousands. Avalanches in the Himalayas and random and focussed slaughter here and abroad. This April will be the cruelest in many lives.

    *The Humbling Brilliant and convoluted and passionate and funny – this is our favorite cinema for a while. Reminds me of Pirandello.

    April 25, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    On our morning walk we saw a memorial along the fence of the swimming pool two blocks from home.
    A teddy bear signified a child. Whiskey and other bottles and smoking devices (cigarillos?) indicated a much older individual, I thought. No! A seventeen-year-old was shot in a scuffle there while we were on vacation.
    This is a small town. Lots of violent stuff happens in small towns.
    Why am I always surprised?
    *Tracks Awesome film about a 1977 trek across Australia by a young woman accompanied for most of that distance only by four camels and her dog. If I could see it again tomorrow on the big screen I would. Haven’t seen Wild yet but I’ve read the book and when speaking of the two women’s experiences I think contrast would be the word rather than compare.
    *Common  Stark film that shows a manipulative musical score is not needed to convey/inspire powerful emotion. Oops maybe spoke a little too soon.
    *(yesterday) The Darkness Beneath basically beneath notice.

    April 23, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    Home again but will continue with anecdotes about trip now and again, I am sure. Looking for a place to have lunch stumbled upon Masala, an Indian buffet in Richmond, Kentucky. Very good, and the chai was not undrinkably sweet.
    We took 421 almost all the way home. Very time-consuming, but a beautiful alternative to a too-busy Interstate. We’re going to try to pick our Interstitial (ha,ha) breaks more carefully in the future.
    *In a World  My first response to the subject was "maybe this movie’s world is too narrow to be interesting." Wrong. Plus it’s great to see (er, hear) auditory issues given more consideration.

    April 22, 2015                                                Harlan, KY

    Killing some time before lunch at Mela, an Indian restaurant in Asheville, I saw a book titled F*CK I’m in my Twenties!

    So what is that about? At the same time that the sixties have become still young (at least to those of us over sixty) teenagers have started to consider the twenties old!

    Sure, I contemplated the specter of independence with a certain amount of misgiving, but it was also a liberation from parental rules and oversight.
    How sweet must these young people’s lives be that they can contemplate attaining their majority with dread?
    I must admit, though, that I didn’t look at the book’s contents.
    Maybe it was full of blank pages.

    April 21, 2015                                    Asheville, NC

    Big day at the Biltmore Estate. Got there too early and killed some time at the gift shop. Yay! Found a wide-brimmed crownless black hat of a style I have wanted for a while now.
    At the manor itself we had a mixed experience. We needed reservations for the tour, we were told, so we made them days in advance. The place was mobbed! I must confess, though, that the crowd control effected by the reservations probably prevented us from getting crushed like a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday.
    It was fun to see the Downton Abbey costumes displayed in the appropriate rooms. One of our favorite rooms was the library, and another favorite of my partner’s was in the kitchen area. The master bedrooms were impressive.
    We lunched at the Stable Cafe (our choice out of half a dozen) and found it, actually, just okay and (no surprise) overpriced.
    After lunch we went to the winery for a tour and wine-tasting. I told my partner adamantly that I was not going to spit out any wine. What do you know- they didn’t expect us to.
    Far and away the best part of the day was the azalea garden. There were walls of azaleas – there were hillsides of azaleas! The tulips in the formal gardens were done, but the azaleas of many hues were in full glory.
    After an afternoon rest we went out to eat at La Cantina restaurant which was as awesome as our lunch was ordinary. The spinach calabacitas enchiladas might sound odd but they, and the accompanying sides, were exceptional. The plates were so big we will get another meal out of our dinner, and I’m really looking forward to those leftovers.
    *The Human Voice Short film from Jean Cocteau piece starring Sophia Loren and directed by her son. An attitude towards love not prevalent any more, I don’t believe. It is Italian, though, and I may be an American clueless about attitudes abroad.

    April 20, 2015                                    Big Stone Gap, VA

    Rain, rain. From what I hear, the storms are here early this year.
    With the delay (I admit I don’t even want to carry luggage out to the car in a downpour) comes a tendency towards introspection and rumination.
    What’s with the big anti-punctuation movement? Are speedy brilliant readers so quick of brain that punctuation appears to them like boulders on a running path? Are exclamation points too dramatic, puerile, what?
    Yet on the other hand people use periods (dots to you, maybe) for emphasis after each word of a phrase or sentence the way we used to use underlining or italics.
    I guess it’s just part of our new dot.com century. Periods are still way cool.
    Oops! The rain has let up. It lightens and brightens outside.
    Later!

                                                               Asheville, NC

    We reached Asheville early this afternoon, and decided to go tourist gung ho for a trolley ride. I don’t think I ever saw so much great architecture in two hours. The driver, Roger, was a fount of knowledge.  We saw so much of interest I’m sure we will return.
    Tomorrow we visit the Estate.

    April 19, 2015                                     Big Stone Gap, VA
    What a beautiful time of year to take a drive through Kentucky via Clay City and the national park that includes the Red River Gorge!
    Our hiking experience there is something I’ve always wanted to reprise but today we just flitted through.
    Sure, we could have driven all the way to Asheville by now, but then we wouldn’t have experienced the wonderful cessation of stress we enjoyed by turning off the Interstate. (And believe me the Interstates we were on today were a cakewalk compared to the usual traffic.)
    It is getting downright comical the way we never get a vacation without serious rain (oh, I exaggerate?) But as long as Tuesday is glorious we will be content.
    In the meantime we are enjoying a pretty good view – the second best thing next to great weather.

    April 18, 2015                                             Madison, IN

    Tomorrow we head out to Asheville, North Carolina to see the Biltmore Estate. The original attraction was the garden which we hope will be vast. After we had already made reservations at a nearby lodge, it occurred to me we might need reservations for tickets for the estate itself.
    It’s a good thing we checked because timely purchase makes a difference in the price and sets a time for visiting the house. The tickets seem exorbitantly expensive but that probably says more about our naivete than the unreasonableness of the price.
    Heigh-ho we are off to see how the other two percent lived!
    *Cosmopolis Really reminded us both of Beckett. Comprised mostly of conversations in a limo, the cosmopolitan life comes across as a very narrow one indeed.
    *Whispers in the Dark Kind of dumb. The protagonist fails to hold respect and the illusion is broken.

    April 17, 2015                                            Madison, IN
    Months ago my son celebrated the fact he had 20,000 viewers on one of his sites at one time.
    The other day I celebrated the milestone of getting hits from a total of 1,000 different places since Maploco set up a new system in what – November, 2012?
    Ha, ha and Yippee!

    *Maps of the Stars  Greek tragedy meets Hollywood in this black comedy. Entertaining but we both got tired of the repetitious verse.

    *Good Luck Chuck Ditsy fun almost destroyed by the friend’s nasty foulmouth.

    April 16, 2015                                              Madison, IN


                                        
    What is the difference between a film and a movie? I would use them interchangeably but a teenager in the first movie listed below differentiates. Maybe I’d better catch up on that and get back to you.

    Okay, I guess my ignorance in this respect proves just how much for fun I have considered movies to be. According to a 2009 article by James Monaco a movie is an economic venture destined for "consumption." Cinema has more ambition in the realm of high art. Film, on the third hand, has the fewest connotations associated with it.

    I pledge to henceforth try to utilise the proper terminology.

    *Peace Love and Misunderstanding  This is the second time we’ve seen this film and we enjoyed it again. I’m inclined to think it is misnamed, and maybe the ending is too easy, but it sure is colorful and makes me want to see Woodstock and its environs.



    *The Bounty This is the youngest I’ve seen some of these big-name stars. A backstory of the mutiny that is almost enough to make me hit the history books to see how true to life it was. That might be what the curious would have done in 1982 when this movie was made. As for me, I’ll content myself with Wikipedia.

    April 15, 2015                                           Madison, IN

    My partner and I are sick of Christians quoting the Old Testament about sin and punishment. "…an eye for an eye" etc. Ad nauseum.

    Quoting the older book for any but historical, aesthetic, inspirational or ecstatic reasons is like referencing old law: it simply isn’t relevant to the present.
    We think "love thy neighbor as thyself" is about as good a rule as we can get without getting specific. Notice that the admonition to hate others as you hate yourself is not to be found in the New Testament.
    My partner: The worst mistake the Christian church made was to take the Old and New Testaments and  bind them into one book called the Bible.
    *Dead Man Walking   Superbly done. I’m sorry the title and grim subject matter put me off for so long.
    *Poklosie (The Aftermath)  Stellar film about an American resident visiting his family’s Polish village decades after World War II. Stunning, really, and not beautifully so. Sobering.

    April 14, 2014                                             Madison, IN

    Some states have common law marriage. Some states don’t. Different states have different laws related to divorce.
    States do not, however, try to meddle with basic constitutional rights like freedom of speech. Er, I take that back. They might try, but they won’t succeed for very long.
    States have rights, but once equal protection under the law is invoked and accepted by the Federal government there is usually no going back.
    That’s why I don’t understand the stance taken by Rubin and others that the states should have the power to decide whether or not gay marriage can be legal.
    It has become obvious to most Americans that people have the constitutional right to marry regardless of sexual orientation and do not have a problem with it. Eventually all the states, even if not forced to by the Federal government, will acknowledge this.
    Do I believe this because I believe that right always prevails? Because science demonstrates pretty conclusively that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice or original sin but a matter of biological development?
    I don’t actually believe that right always prevails. Beheadings and other power plays can get in the way.
    But Rubio claims to be running for the highest office in the land. Yammering about the ridiculous possibility that our highly mobile citizenry will allow itself to be jerked around by state law when it comes to the rights and responsibilities of marriage – well that is just downright provincial.
    Honestly.

    *Babadook  Supposed to be one of the best horror shows of 2014, I guess, but the real horror is the idea that the problems of people will just go away by themselves without permanent scarring or any sort of real work. And I’m not willing to say it’s just my dislike of the genre talking. This film is yuk and unconvincing to boot.

    * Down to Earth Chris Rock in sweet amusing 3rd version of this theme. 

    April 13, 2015                                          Madison, IN

    The fool in me better watch out! I’m beginning to be seduced by the month of April. No, more the fool I, it is already too late. I am completely besotted.
    *Vatel  Lavish and lascivious as the French court could be under the Sun King, this film is exhausting and – but no, I don’t want to ruin it for you! By all means, see it. Others lived it, after all.

    *Waiting Room  The Highland Hospital in Oakland, California suffers a busy time in the Emergency Room. This staff is incredibly level under extreme pressure. Unfortunately this is not unusual for them. Suffering humanity that is forced to wait (some of them for days!) Makes me glad we live in a small town.

    April 12, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    A few days ago I saw what was supposed to be a foolproof way to fall asleep.  It was inhale four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, then spend the next eight seconds exhaling. The person who wrote about it said it worked like magic. She was asleep before she completed the exercise once.
    I resolved to try it at once since it was 4 A.M.
    To make a long story short, it didn’t work. Maybe I am a little OCD but I am way too conscientious about counting to relinquish it for sleep! You’re talking to a woman who is still counting (non-existent) reps after she’s out the gym door.
    Alas, therefore, this wonderful possible rescue from insomnia has to join the other quick-fix failures. The only thing that has worked for me is water (a big glass or two) and or reading. Not too exciting reading.

    *The Overnighters  Wow. I have a feeling that this documentary about the homeless in Williston, North Dakota, scene of population explosion due to the fracking industry, ended up where nobody expected.

    April 11, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    A while back I read somewhere that happy people don’t mind doing chores. I think the statement was made about older people and I think the exact wording was closer to, "older people who are unhappy have difficulty doing chores" but does it really matter?
    I have never been happy doing chores. There are some chores that I can perform contentedly, but that holds only for those tasks I don’t mind.
    Nobody is happy doing chores unless they enjoy doing chores.
    I have heard such folks exist but I’ve never met one.

    *A Most Violent Year Dismal, depressing, with one of the least introspective protagonists I have ever read or heard of but well-done nonetheless.
    April 10, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    April Fools were people who didn’t know that the New Year old was no longer celebrated in the Spring but what better time to celebrate than when there is new life everywhere? It is the intuitive time to observe the new year. It just feels right.
    It takes greater learning to know about the meaning of the winter solstice – the return of longer days. That point of the year probably deserves to be literally considered the New Year.
    The only hitch is (ha,ha) we don’t celebrate the New Year the morning of the winter solstice. We celebrate it on January first.
    In other words, emotionally the Spring celebrations are right on, while the winter celebrations based on hidden truths and practically invisible changes are off by over ten days.
    So which observation time is more foolish?
    As far as I’m concerned, passing up any chance to party might be considered foolish!
    *Any Day Now is based on a true story that took place in the seventies. It packs passion.

    April 9, 2015                                        Madison, IN

    As I have probably mentioned before, finishing books has become harder for me. I would like to think this is often a good thing.

    Books I’ve picked up for pure entertainment haven’t really let me down. I’ve let them down, probably, expecting more than they were capable of delivering.

    A couple I’ve tried lately: Darynda Jones Third Grave Dead Ahead. I admire the creativity and unexpected twists in perception of this author. I even recommended it for light reading (hopefully to people a good deal younger than me) on Facebook. Within 100 pages of the end, though, I just lost interest. Completely and totally. I just didn’t care. My praise still stands for those who need escape more than I do. Now it’s off to the library as a gift offering. Whether it meets their standards I have no idea.

    I wish romances available at the library would be as clearly marked RF for romance fiction as mysteries are marked M. If they were, I would have been spared this new book I picked up recently: Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick. You think I should have known from the title what to expect? Why? I picked up Heartburn by Nora Ephron all unknowing of her reputation and it was brilliant. Ditto Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge. Have my tastes changed? Have I merely gotten older?

    Maybe I’m becoming an old curmudgeon but I think not. I was introduced to Wallace Stegner (Angle of Repose) Anthony Powell (A Dance to the Music of Time) and myriads of other authors by a chance meeting in the stacks of the library. The fact that these days fewer of these encounters are serendipitous suggests to me that fewer of the new offerings are worthwhile.

    I hate to be the kind of person that will only read a critically acclaimed (or at least critically mentioned) book but even some of those are not satisfying me in the way of my past literary adventures. I find myself being dragged down by the vicarious experiences I’m invited to endure rather than educated and informed by them.

    Is it just me? I’m bored.

    *Pride Now here is a movie about cooperation between gays and lesbians and miners in the UK that is inspiring. This one is very much worth your time. Well, maybe not if you only watch one movie a year….

    *The Way He Looks  Set in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this is a lovely and very natural coming-of-age story about a blind boy.

    Wow! Two great films in one day.

    April 8, 2015                                                Madison, IN

    I’m beginning to understand the aged, I think. For one thing, I’m disapproving. I see the behavior of the young in the movies and I’m shocked. It is obviously so wrong to walk out of a restaurant without paying and to shoplift (why do I have to add shoplift to my dictionary when shoplifting is so obviously a gerund? (Ha, ha I guess because my illiterate dictionary didn’t know about the word gerund, either!))
    Of course I know the movies aren’t real life but more and more I know that modelling is. (No, not the kind of modelling which involves getting dressed up and photographed -sigh.)
    Anyway I’ve gotten off the subject. What I’m trying to say that the young me was just as intolerant of the disapproval of the old but in their eyes what I did was just as wrong as what I see in the young today. I know, duh, huh?
    But that’s not all. I think the old felt sorry for the crappy ugly world we were inheriting compared with the beautiful full-of-life world they enjoyed when they were growing up. And they were right just as we are right to feel the same way now.
    Let’s face it, though. What is really full of life are the young.
    *The King of Devil’s Island  Based on the true story of an uprising at a reformatory in Norway. Gripping.

    *Suicide Kings Oh I don’t have the stomach. We stopped watching. Supposed to be funny but I don’t think so. P.S. Actually my partner finished it the next day and found it pretty interesting. (4-9)

    *Practical Magic Oh I don’t have the patience. Neither did my partner. This film is too young for us, I guess. We abandoned it.

    What is happening? Am I getting about movies the way I am about books?  If they don’t hold me, I don’t hold to them. Make me care. This is not a dare, it is an imperative.

    April 7, 2015                                              Madison, IN

    Before five o’clock on the morning of the recent eclipse of the moon, my mate called me from the parking lot of his workplace. "You might want to take a look outside. The moon is full, bright and glorious."
    I followed his advice and saw what he saw, then looked again through binoculars. There was no moisture impeding my view – no fog or clouds or for that matter cataracts and it was the most detailed sighting of the moon I’ve ever enjoyed. Confused about the timing, I thought the eclipse was already over.
    Imagine my excitement when just then a weatherman on the news was describing the eclipse as imminent! I knew it wouldn’t be a complete eclipse this time around, but over the course of the next half hour I got to see the convex curve of the Earth’s – our – shadow obscuring the sun’s mirror. Almost half of the moon was affected and there was very little rose in the glow because the moon was so high.
    When it comes to me and celestial sightings luck has outdone planning. When I’ve dragged myself and my kids out of bed to see a comet we’ve experienced a pale whitish smudge in the sky.
    When I am fatalistic I see the best stuff seemingly by chance.
    I don’t feel this way about all aspects of my life, obviously, and luckily the plans of others in my life for seeing stars and meteors have been highly successful (heh – no pun intended.)
    And oh, yes – at least I’m willing to go outside and look up.
    *Twelve Mile Road  This movie actually made me sentimental about rolling farmland. It looked so peaceful. Fine family film. P.S. Aaack! On second and third thoughts I cannot believe I said that. I must have been seduced by Tom Selleck. The whole family ought to know that there are more choices than offered by this film, and that the city is not always evil and the country not always wholesome. (4-9)

    *The Imitation Game We loved this film. I was astounded at how fiercely Alan Turing had to fight against his own side to achieve what he was hired to do. We got to see this one on the big screen. A must-see.

    *Unbreakable Bruce Wooden, er I mean Bruce Willis playing his usual impassive self, which quite frankly has come to irritate me. My partner likes his style better than I do and I confess we did watch the whole thing. Very weird musical choices in spots.

    I can’t believe we saw three films in one day, but that’s a rainy day for you.


    April 6, 2015                                                 Madison, IN

    I haven’t written much about Spring this year.
    Over a week ago I saw a yard full of pale yellow daffodils and pink hyacinth, but were they real? I couldn’t believe my eyes.
    Then day before yesterday I saw a weeping cherry in full bloom. Wha….? Huh? That tree had to be real! Ditto the star magnolia (just had to enter magnolia into my dictionary so my word program wouldn’t change it to Mongolia. It knows it’s geography, I guess, but it’s horticulturally illiterate.)
    We have been enjoying Spring but now I just must enthuse, because walking through the pioneer garden between First and Second Streets I had a wild surprise. Big starry bloodroot blooms! The biggest I’ve ever seen and a good-sized patch of them, too. There they were in all their glory, with their one leaf apiece wrapped around them like shawls.
    Now, finally, with a native plant blooming so fulsomely, I’m finally willing to believe it’s Spring.
    *Love is Strange  Love may be strange, but religion is stranger.

    April 5, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    * Barefoot  We stopped watching after half an hour.

    April 4, 2015                                            Madison, IN

    To people that say they don’t want to "support" gays or gay marriage by providing services to them, I say "Bite me." (Ha, ha, I really have no idea what that means but I’ve been wanting to use it for years – it sounds so deliciously vulgar and hostile. April fool! But back to the subject.)
    You (providers of services) aren’t supporting the recipients of your services. You are supporting yourselves by doing work for which you are getting paid.
    If you were donating your service for free, that would be support.
    Get off your judgmental high horse and mind your own business, lest someone refuse service to you some day for some perceived deficiency on your part. It is not illegal, for instance to refuse service to people because they have a purple rinse in their hair or because they are too skinny/fat or because they do not have the same taste in clothing. It would be very unpleasant, however, to be the recipient of that kind of treatment.  Most business owners do not want to treat their customers in that way. Why would you?
    In other words, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Sound familiar?
    (I can’t believe we still have to talk about stuff like this.)
    Oh, and with regards to Governor Pence’s touting of how good, nice and tolerant we are here in Indiana, well.
    No comment. But I have a question. Did he make that speech this past Wednesday?
    *Shrink  Why are we not hearing about so many good films?  Are we the only moviegoers in our own real lives?  We loved this movie with its struggling fraught characters and its actually interesting dialogue. (Why is interesting dialogue so rare?) If this is another self-referential Hollywood movie I say keep them coming!

    April 3, 2015                                           Madison, IN

    On April Fool’s day we went to Jeffersonville and walked the pedestrian bridge to Louisville. The weather was ideal for the jaunt. Both ways on the bridge gives you about a mile but we went far enough on Main Street to find a great restaurant, Wild Egg.
    We saved a longer walk or bus ride to the center of the downtown area for another time. 
    So far we have walked bridges across the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Madison and Louisville.
    Unfortunately Louisville, which seemed pretty carefree on Wednesday, is now suffering flooding and a fire at the GE building in an industrial park.
    In fact, the major flood danger in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky seems not to be from the Ohio River but from its tributaries swollen and overflowing due to four and five inch rainfall.

    * Lilting  Anything but lilting, this film dragged and lulled me to sleep, try as I might to stay awake.

    April 2, 2015                                           Madison, IN
    Haha I’m a Gemini so I’m a dual fool!
    No, no, not a duel fool. Such a one would be quadrupally foolish.
    If he who cannot see and yet believes is blessed, what is he who sees yet cannot believe?
    Quite possibly dead.
    With the mounting evidence of the reality of global warming I find myself wanting to buttonhole doubters and ask, "Now do you believe?"

    * The Closet  Thoroughly delightful star-studded silly French comedy featuring the cutest kitten ever.

    * Bill Cunningham New York  Must-see documentary if you are a people watcher. If you aren’t, you must see it for it’s humanity – and for Cunningham’s.  If not then more the fool, you.

    April 1, 2015                                               Madison, IN

    Sound the halls with calls of folly!

    Since a spring song was appropriated and converted into Good King Wenceslas I’m thinking turnabout is fair play and trying to decide what Christmas carols would make good Spring songs.

    Joy to the world, the Sun has come! Let Earth receive her Spring!

    We wish you a merry Springtime and a sweet Summer here!

    Oh starry night, the moon is softly shining!

    Too bad rites of life and fertility have been replaced by Black Friday and grim death.  The supposed rising from the dead and ascension into heaven call for an unlikely combination of suppression of mental decomposition imagery and a vivid celestial imagination.

    And what is Easter to most of us, really? It is colorful eggs, candy and clothes. Truer to the pagan rites than to dismal Christianity.

    Until someone wished me a happy Easter the other day, I confess I hadn’t given it a thought.

    Spring, now that’s another story!  Or better yet, song.

    *Today we played the April Fools and accidentally saw a film that we had forgotten we had seen. My partner does not believe he saw it.  Not one part of it seemed familiar to him!  It was Horrible Bosses, and it didn’t seem as funny to me as I reported three years ago.  But then laughs are dependent largely on the unexpected.

    We decided to watch another comedy, The Snapper. It was as pleasant a change from Victorian family tragedy as a consequence of unwanted pregnancy as Spring is from winter.  Lively.  And oh, yes, times have changed!  Thank heavens.