On the three-day weekend that just matriculated, we headed back to SLO for Jimmy B's big surprise birthday party, the big 4-0. Good for him.
We had to park around the corner and get there early and jump out and say SURPRISE! and everything, which oddly is both the second time this year and second time ever I've gotten to do that.
Tony even made it out on the sly, bringing his new lady Amber with him. They landed at LAX Saturday morning and met us at Griffith Observatory for a little LA sightseeing before we went on to San Luis and they went back to our apartment for one night in the Southland proper before heading north.
Amber had never been to LA, and the Observatory was close enough to both LAX and our exit from the Southland, and checked enough boxes for iconic LA stuff (nice views of the smog/smoke/basin; FREE, etc).
Because of the Woolsey fire that is eating Malibu and the western half of Simi Valley, Hwy 101 was closed through there, and we had to find some other routes, mostly through the outer reaches of the Grapevine into Ventura or, on the way home, from the Nipomo/Santa Maria border through the Grapevine itself.
We stayed with friends Ken and Christine who live in nearby Los Osos. "Nearby" is an LA relativity term; in San Luis Obispo terms Los Osos is the other side of the moon. But they have two kids and a dog and a backyard and a trampoline, so Cass was essentially at Disneyland on Christmas Day.
I was a groomsmen for Jimmy at his wedding, and this was a nice little reunion for that.
Also, anytime we get to see Tony is awesome; he hadn't seen Cass since before he could crawl.
The whole trip made us realize that we don't go to the SLO area enough, missing out on seeing Ryan and Jimmy far too much. Also, the majority of us are now parents, so that's pretty cool, getting the kids together for stuff to do. Outside stuff...backyard stuff...you know, the kid stuff we don't do because currently we're lacking in some of those things.
Love all of you and loved seeing you!
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Three Brief Movie Mentions
I've been sitting on many posts for this site for a while, and here I plan on quickly glossing over two movies and the impressions they left on me, while setting a third up for a deeper discussion later.
These are brief because I have forgotten planty about what I wanted to say, or too much has happened in the meantime and I lost interest to fully savage one of them.
1) Heat, 1995
I had heard so much about this movie in the 23 years since it came out that had turned it into a sacred cow of sorts. I hadn't ever watched it...until a few weeks ago.
I remember the bank heist and shootout in LA that was all over the news back in late '95 or early '96 and the repeated references to Heat. Damn, I gotta see that movie, I remember thinking. Years passed. Years turned to decades.
I own copies of Melville's classic Le Samourai and Kurosawa's Rashomon and Yojimbo, but it wasn't until Fall of 2018 that I got around to watching Heat.
I should change that to "...that I got around to trying to stay awake through Heat."
Holy shit this movie is slow. And every scene is melodrama turned up to eleven. When I read that Michael Mann made the movie off of a scrapped television series treatment, it started to make sense. I am an unabashed homer of HBO's The Wire, and I imagine that if David Simon tried to turn his complex and realistic series into a movie (or five?) that the chances that it could turn into a boring, melodramatic slog would be greater than zero, but my faith in Simon's ability to not up the stakes by resorting to melodrama maybe could fix that.
The only on-screen scene between Pacino and De Niro? All out action set pieces? That Pacino/De Niro scene was good, but unrealistic relative to the entirety of the preceding movie. And the action set pieces were all pretty badass. But do I give a shit about Val Kilmer-the-degenerate-gambler-and -awful-father? Or the creepy relationship De Niro cultivates with Amy Brenneman? Yay, Al Pacino saves his ex-step-daughterQueen Amidala Natalie Portman...
I felt exhausted by the time it was over. Also, THIS MOVIE DOESN'T NEED TO BE 10 MINUTES SHORT OF THREE HOURS LONG.
2) The Third Man, 1949
I JUST SAW THIS!!!! IT'S THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!
If not the "Best Movie Ever," it has certainly busted into my pantheon list of Favorite Pieces of Cinema ever. My ziggurat/pantheon movie discussion is being worked on in my head all the time, and will be discussed later.
As will this incredible thing that I never heard of until a few months ago while reading some film essay.
3) The Neverending Story, 1984
Besides The Princess Bride, Cassius doesn't much care for live-action movies. We sat down and recently watched The Neverending Story to preview it for him should the time come for us to try him out on it.
The special effects were pretty good for 1984 (with the exception of Falcor's face close-ups) or anytime, really, and the idea of people not caring about something leading to its ruin is neat and something I can get behind.
It was okay. I can't say that I liked it two-thirds as much as The Princess Bride, but easily half as much. During the research phase I learned that the movie was based on the German fantasy book of the same (in German) name, about a kid who escapes bullies and ends up with a book that he reads and becomes sucked into, which was something I didn't know.
Not much to say...it was pretty vanilla, but that may be due to me not having the same emotional kid-attachment to it like other movies from the same era (Temple of Doom, Back to the Future, Return of the Jedi, et al). Even this "mention" is boring...
These are brief because I have forgotten planty about what I wanted to say, or too much has happened in the meantime and I lost interest to fully savage one of them.
1) Heat, 1995
I had heard so much about this movie in the 23 years since it came out that had turned it into a sacred cow of sorts. I hadn't ever watched it...until a few weeks ago.
I remember the bank heist and shootout in LA that was all over the news back in late '95 or early '96 and the repeated references to Heat. Damn, I gotta see that movie, I remember thinking. Years passed. Years turned to decades.
I own copies of Melville's classic Le Samourai and Kurosawa's Rashomon and Yojimbo, but it wasn't until Fall of 2018 that I got around to watching Heat.
I should change that to "...that I got around to trying to stay awake through Heat."
Holy shit this movie is slow. And every scene is melodrama turned up to eleven. When I read that Michael Mann made the movie off of a scrapped television series treatment, it started to make sense. I am an unabashed homer of HBO's The Wire, and I imagine that if David Simon tried to turn his complex and realistic series into a movie (or five?) that the chances that it could turn into a boring, melodramatic slog would be greater than zero, but my faith in Simon's ability to not up the stakes by resorting to melodrama maybe could fix that.
The only on-screen scene between Pacino and De Niro? All out action set pieces? That Pacino/De Niro scene was good, but unrealistic relative to the entirety of the preceding movie. And the action set pieces were all pretty badass. But do I give a shit about Val Kilmer-the-degenerate-gambler-and -awful-father? Or the creepy relationship De Niro cultivates with Amy Brenneman? Yay, Al Pacino saves his ex-step-daughter
I felt exhausted by the time it was over. Also, THIS MOVIE DOESN'T NEED TO BE 10 MINUTES SHORT OF THREE HOURS LONG.
2) The Third Man, 1949
I JUST SAW THIS!!!! IT'S THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!
If not the "Best Movie Ever," it has certainly busted into my pantheon list of Favorite Pieces of Cinema ever. My ziggurat/pantheon movie discussion is being worked on in my head all the time, and will be discussed later.
As will this incredible thing that I never heard of until a few months ago while reading some film essay.
3) The Neverending Story, 1984
Besides The Princess Bride, Cassius doesn't much care for live-action movies. We sat down and recently watched The Neverending Story to preview it for him should the time come for us to try him out on it.
The special effects were pretty good for 1984 (with the exception of Falcor's face close-ups) or anytime, really, and the idea of people not caring about something leading to its ruin is neat and something I can get behind.
It was okay. I can't say that I liked it two-thirds as much as The Princess Bride, but easily half as much. During the research phase I learned that the movie was based on the German fantasy book of the same (in German) name, about a kid who escapes bullies and ends up with a book that he reads and becomes sucked into, which was something I didn't know.
Not much to say...it was pretty vanilla, but that may be due to me not having the same emotional kid-attachment to it like other movies from the same era (Temple of Doom, Back to the Future, Return of the Jedi, et al). Even this "mention" is boring...
Post-War Support for Artists in Japan
I heard about a town/village in Japan on PBS that warmed my heart.
I believe it was the town of Ono in Hyogo Prefecture. In the post-war years, many communities tried to return to a semblance of normalcy, and those attempts took on many forms.
In Ono, the people believed that art was imperative to the new world they needed to be a part of, and that meant that art was necessary. Instead of demand artists become anointed and declared important, which rarely does any good for a people or their beliefs, the people of Ono did something else.
They paid for it themselves.
The people felt that art was a worthy expenditure, and decided to devote nearly 35% of their salaries to supporting young "starving" artist types. They bought art, lots of it. The felt that if artists could live without fear of destitution or literal starvation, they could maintain a high level of output and growth.
None of these artists were living the high life, none were made wealthy in these first decades after WWII, but they were able to learn about and improve on their craft, whatever the medium.
That a town got together and said, "This is worthy," and everyone bought it, gives me hope in humanity.
I believe it was the town of Ono in Hyogo Prefecture. In the post-war years, many communities tried to return to a semblance of normalcy, and those attempts took on many forms.
In Ono, the people believed that art was imperative to the new world they needed to be a part of, and that meant that art was necessary. Instead of demand artists become anointed and declared important, which rarely does any good for a people or their beliefs, the people of Ono did something else.
They paid for it themselves.
The people felt that art was a worthy expenditure, and decided to devote nearly 35% of their salaries to supporting young "starving" artist types. They bought art, lots of it. The felt that if artists could live without fear of destitution or literal starvation, they could maintain a high level of output and growth.
None of these artists were living the high life, none were made wealthy in these first decades after WWII, but they were able to learn about and improve on their craft, whatever the medium.
That a town got together and said, "This is worthy," and everyone bought it, gives me hope in humanity.
I was having a thought...
...which is always dangerous, I know. But check it out:
I was reading a while back about Bob Bakker's (the "kk" isn't a typo) thoughts on guard animals. He posited that if you used a Kimodo dragon instead of a German shepherd as a guard animal for your house or yard, not only would intruders be generally obliterated, but the amount of food needed to sustain the animal (a large reptile) would by far pale in comparison to the amount needed to sustain a large mammal over the same fifteen year timespan.
This takes for granted that one could train dragons to be guard animals, and sure, Bakker is a reptile guy, but it reminded me a little of the old stories of Indian kings using cobras as guard animals, king cobras specifically. That always sounded kinda neat: an army of badass snakes guarding your palace...
Anyway, this leads me to the titular "thought" from above and a conversation I was having with Corrie, and helps frame a question.
If we're assuming that it would be possible to train Kimodo dragons and king cobras for this discussion's sake, then, why not assume we could train house-cats for the same purpose: guarding a house or property?
That's not the question I'm trying to pose, exactly. Let's assume you could. After watching Sargent Tibbs from 101 Dalmatians and, in a more direct vein, The Aristocats enough times recently, I got to thinking that cats could make pretty decent home defenders.
I asked Corrie during one viewing if she thought some cats were properly motivated and properly trained, did she think they could disarm or disable a home invader. She mulled it over before answering in the affirmative, which was my guess as well.
I know that a serious punch while wearing brass knuckles would mess a cat up, but what if four cats were determined to halt your progress upon arriving at a place, or inside a place? I love cats, and I play rough with them, and I've gotten them rather ornery during a play session, and sometimes that lead them to roll their ears back and start to chase me around the room. It was moments like that that are the foundation of my thinking.
So my actual question: How many house cats would be necessary to halt a pair of intruders if properly trained and motivated? Two? Six? Is this even a legitimate conversation?
Assault weapons being an equalizer and all, they may make swift work of dogs and dragons, so it would be silly to assume that cats should have to perform better under those circumstances.
This entire endeavor sounds way darker than I envisioned before I started writing it.
For the record let me reiterate: I love cats, I love dogs, I love raccoons, I love Kimodo dragons and king cobras, and generally enjoy all non-roach animals on this planet.
I was reading a while back about Bob Bakker's (the "kk" isn't a typo) thoughts on guard animals. He posited that if you used a Kimodo dragon instead of a German shepherd as a guard animal for your house or yard, not only would intruders be generally obliterated, but the amount of food needed to sustain the animal (a large reptile) would by far pale in comparison to the amount needed to sustain a large mammal over the same fifteen year timespan.
This takes for granted that one could train dragons to be guard animals, and sure, Bakker is a reptile guy, but it reminded me a little of the old stories of Indian kings using cobras as guard animals, king cobras specifically. That always sounded kinda neat: an army of badass snakes guarding your palace...
Anyway, this leads me to the titular "thought" from above and a conversation I was having with Corrie, and helps frame a question.
If we're assuming that it would be possible to train Kimodo dragons and king cobras for this discussion's sake, then, why not assume we could train house-cats for the same purpose: guarding a house or property?
That's not the question I'm trying to pose, exactly. Let's assume you could. After watching Sargent Tibbs from 101 Dalmatians and, in a more direct vein, The Aristocats enough times recently, I got to thinking that cats could make pretty decent home defenders.
I asked Corrie during one viewing if she thought some cats were properly motivated and properly trained, did she think they could disarm or disable a home invader. She mulled it over before answering in the affirmative, which was my guess as well.
I know that a serious punch while wearing brass knuckles would mess a cat up, but what if four cats were determined to halt your progress upon arriving at a place, or inside a place? I love cats, and I play rough with them, and I've gotten them rather ornery during a play session, and sometimes that lead them to roll their ears back and start to chase me around the room. It was moments like that that are the foundation of my thinking.
So my actual question: How many house cats would be necessary to halt a pair of intruders if properly trained and motivated? Two? Six? Is this even a legitimate conversation?
Assault weapons being an equalizer and all, they may make swift work of dogs and dragons, so it would be silly to assume that cats should have to perform better under those circumstances.
This entire endeavor sounds way darker than I envisioned before I started writing it.
For the record let me reiterate: I love cats, I love dogs, I love raccoons, I love Kimodo dragons and king cobras, and generally enjoy all non-roach animals on this planet.
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