Finally Watched "Solo"

My brother told me his feelings about Solo around the holidays, and I think I was surprised. Having heard the mostly negative din coming from the web, I didn't make it a priority to see it. Dan, though, said, "People compain too much. I liked the hell out of it. It's a western...like Rogue One was basically a war movie, like a WWII movie, Solo is a western, and it's fucking good. Yeah, it's not Harrison Ford, but, whatever. It's good."

Heady praise from Dan.

So we watched it and I have to agree. It was a nifty little sci-fi movie, that happens to be about a beloved American character. So, it was generally destined to fail in the realm of public opinion.

Some things I wanted to say about it, that are mostly original to the conversation Corrie and I had about it:

1. It seems to me that the kid playing Han is playing the character not as was included in Star Wars, and the subsequent sequels starring Harrison Ford, but rather playing the character whom Americans have gone on to make legend---the kid is playing our idea of what Han Solo is or should be. He's not playing Solo from Tatooine in 1977, he's playing (or the role was written as) "What America Believes Han Solo to Be."
2. The kid playing Solo is doing a characterization of "an American." I'll come back to this one

Harrison Ford played Han as an updated Rick Blaine: what seemed like an American only interested in money for himself, and not much else. The "Cause" wasn't his, until it was. He never seems interested in helping until after you've given up hope (or pretend that the film isn't predictable enough to understand he's not going away).

This Han is different, but so what? It's fun, unless you take Harrison Ford's role as a sacred cow.

Tatooine in 1977 was filmed in Tunis, and the only Americans on screen at the time were Luke, Leia, and Han; most everybody else was British. So Han as Rick Blaine would have made sense to European viewers.

I had this whole "American" archetype, or American caricature in film, thesis bouncing around my head for some time now. It comes back to Jiminy Cricket.

The main audience for Pinocchio, like Snow White before, was the European market, and Jiminy Cricket, while a natural character for American viewers, was profoundly American to European audiences: he's resourceful, positive--even cheery--and nearly a smart alec. The street-smart wise-cracker is American to Europeans.

Check out The Third Man for this representation as well: an Austrian, a Brit, and American...

Han, in this new movie, is an updated version of this idea. He's cheery, street-smart, puts himself into conversations he wouldn't otherwise be part of, and openly questions the wisdom of authorities.

One Timline Point Concerning Chewbacca

Chewie is around to help Yoda survive Order 66, the order that all Jedis were to be executed. How many years does it take for him to go from helping rescue Yoda to being imprisoned and fed other prisoners in the muck?

In anycase, the Han that we get in this movie seems like he would have needed less prodding to join the rebellion. But again, so what? It was entertaining enough.

Hot Stuff

It's weird when you may learn something new.

Imagine, for a moment, a chili pepper. Jalapeno, bell, habanero, ghost...there are a large variety. Chilis are what the aboriginal Americans named them (Aztecs?), and the "pepper" was thrown on the end by Columbus. Having taken a lot of money to go on a sailing voyage to find black pepper---and other spices---Columbus noticed that many chilis are spicy, some as hot as holy hell, and claimed that he found a version of what he was looking for.

Anyway, the active ingredient in chilis that makes them hot is called capsaicin, and there's a naming connection to the genus Capsicum, the nightshade family of plants that are the chilis themselves.

This is what I learned about the hot stuff:

Capsaicin, in mammals, produces the sensation that your mouth is actually on fire, rather, it tells the brain that your mouth is actively burning.

Birds, contrarily, suffer no such sensation, and enjoy the botanical fruits just like us, but without all the mouth burning.

The reason makes sense and is obvious once you hear why: mammals, ones that eat vegetation anyway, have grinding teeth, and the chewing action destroys the seeds; birds don't have the grinding teeth, and apparently the gizzards don't threaten the seeds, and so they pass through mostly intact.

Mouth on fire, people!

Strike's Over, and Other News

I've been formulating a long written piece about our strike, the power of strikes, the power collective bargaining, and educational topics on a whole, but that will wait.

Our strike lasted six work days and a seventh day of holiday pay. We marched in the rain and stood in the rain. We took drives to a local drug store soaking wet just to use the bathroom.We marched in downtown LA and in our own school's neighborhoods. We shouted so loud outside of City Hall, more than 60k of us, that we rattled their windows and were heard through the walls inside the negotiating room.

And we won.

Strikes work, people! They really do!

Now Cass is sick, or at least over the worst part and on the mend-ish, with two illnesses that I thought only appeared in novels like Little Women. He has BOTH scarlet fever and hand, foot, and mouth disease.

Corrie's birthday was last Monday and I stayed home from work to take care of both her and Cass, as the ravages of fever swept through our apartment like wildfire. How I've lucked out is beyond me...maybe my job is finally helping with immunities.

I have some other stuff to put up here today, and we'll see how much I can get through, depending on naps and Incredible 2 viewings.

Holding the Line, Feeling Fine

That's only half correct, frankly.

The "feeling fine" part is a bit optimistic.

I may be collecting some of these thoughts for an actual newspaper down here in the Southland before I collect them myself for an educational treatise (or whatever) and publish it through Immolation Productions.

But, we are on STRIKE.

We are on the the forefront of the fight for the Good. We are on the correct side of history. We are part of the rebellion, part of the resistance.

I always wanted to be, right? That's what Corrie tells me, and that I should lean into it and become more vociferous.

I'm not exactly sure what that would look like, but I do know that as shit has unraveled among our tiny crew, how some people are quietly trying to undermine what we have built in this crucible---and it has been amazing to see how strong and tight a group can get under intense circumstances---that I have been far more diplomatic than the circumstances would generally allow, and that may be my ultimate strength: Somehow I will be able to direct these adults to some semblance of peace on the other side.

HOLD THE LINE!

SOLIDARITY FOREVER!

Electric Guitars Serenaded Us

Happy New Year, 2019!

"Do you wanna watch a silly, comedy tonight?" Corrie asked last night, New Year's Eve, after 10 sometime. We realized that it wouldn't really be over until a few minutes after midnight, and into 2019, so I set an alarm for 11:59, just to give us a chance to get romantical when the clock struck 12.

The movie we settled on was a Mr. Bean Comes to Hollywood edition, where in his duty as a terrible museum guard he's about to be fired, it turns out the boss's boss loves him, so they send him to LA to oversee the return of Whistler's Mother to an American museum. There's plenty of misunderstandings about his knowledge background in the subject (modern art), and plenty of idiotic absurdities (it is a Mr. Bean program), and it fit the bill.

Corrie got up to go to the bathroom at some point two-thirds of the way through, and my 11:59 alarm went off. We shared a laugh, and before I could decide if I wanted to try to catch the taped-delay falling ball or something more local, across the street someone started shredding an electric guitar.

Blasting into the New Year a lovely rendition of Auld Lang Syne echoed in our apartment and, presumably, all of them in our little vicinity.

We rang in the new year with the musical standard swallowing us whole, and it was like the light fantastic.

:Presenting a New Series: "WILT"

I had an idea: present a new ongoing post series called WILT: What I Learned Today.

Technically this is closer to WILY, or What I Learned Yesterday, but still...

Anyway, the inaugural edition is this:

White men in Long Beach don't ride the bus.

At least, and probably more accurately: White men with steady jobs and graduate degrees don't ride the bus.

My guess is that most men in my position---time off and a car that needs work, so it gets left at the mechanic and the mechanic is currently out of loaners---would just use Uber or Lyft to get home from that mechanic.

Not me, yo, I use the bus. I imagine the cost isn't too much more to use one of the car share deals, but it turns out I'd rather wait for the bus.

Maybe it's the NY in my system that I can't shake, but public transportation is closer to my heart than the new-thing.

In any case, I was the only white person on the bus yesterday morning, and it got me thinking about the different worlds that people most places inhabit.

More on this concept later...

Old Books

We watched a documentary about the Doors the other night and I learned a few things. One of those things I starts a discussion that I want to have later about the speed with which Art is created (Mo Yan is also a part of that discussion).

Another thing was that Jim Morrison self-published three books of poetry between '69 and '70. Eventually the content was published together by a company as the Doors skyrocketed in popularity.

They were together for only 54 months, but the combination of talent and rookies was powerful and strange.

Anyway, I started looking for those books. I saw a collection of "lost" and "rare" content from Morrison online for sale starting at $2.15.

No effing way. I dug a little, and that obviously wasn't what I was looking for.

But this article talks about exactly what I was looking for.

It discusses the three books, their "limited" print runs, and the fact that many of the books ended up with a friend of Jim's who passed on in 2010. There would be a series of auctions to raise money for music in education groups.

Bidding started at $5k. That made more sense. And it was back in 2016.

I found an eBay exchange with a similar photo to the one above that must have been from a winner of one of the original bids. It looks like they turned around and put it onto eBay. Oddly enough, they were stationed in San Luis Obispo.

It sold for nearly eighteen grand.

Did you know Jim Morrison's dad was Admiral Morrison, commander of the Navy during the Vietnam Conflict and did not exactly see the talent in what his well-read and formerly shy son was doing?

This begs a different conversation: How many father/son combos who were not either both president or king or emperor could have had an effect on so many humans? Name another combo that affected/effected as many other people?