Weblog 191
October 4, 2009~ 1:15pm
Wayne and I spent a lovely long day driving in the hills of Pennsylvania yesterday. We attended the Springs Festival. We drank hot, mulled apple cider, checked out all the leather and glass, pottery and woven arts that were on display, and the weather was absolutely perfect, cool and sunny.
(That's not my picture....those are still on my camera) but it conveys the mood and the dreaminess of the day. We always have a little trouble finding the right turn off from Route 40, but find it we did- (or Wayne did, almost by instinct.)
Even if we hadn't, I know of no better place to get lost than that high country. There's nothing in the world like mountain air....it cleanses the deep down parts of us, and opens the lungs like nothing else.
After a BIG MEAL at the Sun Porch buffet restaurant in Hopwood, PA., we returned home to watch the Netflix movie that came in the mail, and goodness...it was such a treat! Three hours of an intense, psychological western called "The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford".
Casey Affleck is incredible in the role of Ford- and Brad Pitt is scary as hell playing Jesse James at the end of his outlaw career in a portrayal of near-madness, he's lost in paranoia with an almost paranormal prescience of his own demise: a man who's sadistic, soulless and haunted.
This is certainly not a 'John Ford' western. In fact- for me at least- it has strains of the director Igmar Bergman playing through it as each character wrestles not only with despair, anger and nihilism, but their own looming mortality.
The 'James Gang' breaks down one by one-- hunted and cornered by the law, by each other-- and individual demons. There's not a bad performance in the lot. Every role is perfect. It's a stark, beautifully conceived film with hardly any music in the background except the moody strains of melancholic punctuation music in pivotal scenes. "The Assassination Of Jesse James" is at its core, a morality play, with its harshest lesson in 'be careful what you wish for'...
...be it, easy money, fame, or simply the ability to follow through on Aleister Crowley's maxim of 'Do as you will.'
Affleck learns this lesson hardest. In finally getting close to the outlaw he'd admired throughout his entire young life, he found instead the monster living inside. This is a tremendous film-- as out of character as possible for a saga about the Old West. It's Dr. Faustus on horseback.
October 4, 2009~ 2:50pm
Speaking of haunting- have you ever heard of CAMERA OBSCURA photography? It's produced by taking pictures through two pinholes, and getting the most surprising results. The photos look like dreams
Click on the picture link to see an entire collections of these photographs...they're like looking down a dark tunnel into the subconscious. Fascinating.
October 4, 2009~ 8:15pm
What's this? -you may wonder. Well, my son Matt just gave the news that he and Nicole are expecting their fifth child at the end of January. LOL!!! That's seven grandchildren for this old mare. Holy cow! Maybe Shiloh will get a baby sister, thereby ending her Cleopatra-like reign as monarch. (With 3 brothers to dote on her, she's had the world as her slipper.)
If it's another boy, Matt will have his own 'Four Lads'....glory Halleluiah, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the horde. LOL!! (And Nicky is going to have a round and jolly Christmas, that's for sure!)
October 5, 2009~ 7:30pm
Speak of the rascals, and HERE they appear! From tonight's email (and on Isaac's 10th birthday) the whole gang up at West Point...
....from left to right- Eli, Gabe, Shiloh-- and the birthday boy himself. (And if you have any doubt about what a 'central, demanding role' little Shiloh occupies, one need only look at that face
and you can certainly appreciate how a younger Queen Bee might be a welcome addition.) LOL!!! You GO, girl! (She probably was dressed in something she didn't want to wear-- or perhaps there was a pea under the mattress during her nap. Guaranteed....it was somethin'.) The boys are all her faithful pages. Lordy, lordy....what a crew. :)
October 8, 2009~ 1:15pm
This entire evening I have been engrossed in the most WONDERFUL site. It's the Library of Congress collection of WWI posters, and the art is amazing.
It has Art Deco flair (which I love- often in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge posters, and some Art Nouveau as well -as above)- click on the link and get lost in masterful renderings of soldiers and symbols from many countries~(the German ones are downright scary.) Mostly black, with either primary red or green, lots of skull and formidable looking Deutschland propaganda. (Ah hell, it's all propaganda in stuff like this, right?) Take a trip back in time, both politically and artistically. This is history... served up with panache.
***
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Wayne and I spent a lovely long day driving in the hills of Pennsylvania yesterday. We attended the Springs Festival. We drank hot, mulled apple cider, checked out all the leather and glass, pottery and woven arts that were on display, and the weather was absolutely perfect, cool and sunny.
(That's not my picture....those are still on my camera) but it conveys the mood and the dreaminess of the day. We always have a little trouble finding the right turn off from Route 40, but find it we did- (or Wayne did, almost by instinct.)
Even if we hadn't, I know of no better place to get lost than that high country. There's nothing in the world like mountain air....it cleanses the deep down parts of us, and opens the lungs like nothing else.
After a BIG MEAL at the Sun Porch buffet restaurant in Hopwood, PA., we returned home to watch the Netflix movie that came in the mail, and goodness...it was such a treat! Three hours of an intense, psychological western called "The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford".
Casey Affleck is incredible in the role of Ford- and Brad Pitt is scary as hell playing Jesse James at the end of his outlaw career in a portrayal of near-madness, he's lost in paranoia with an almost paranormal prescience of his own demise: a man who's sadistic, soulless and haunted.
This is certainly not a 'John Ford' western. In fact- for me at least- it has strains of the director Igmar Bergman playing through it as each character wrestles not only with despair, anger and nihilism, but their own looming mortality.
The 'James Gang' breaks down one by one-- hunted and cornered by the law, by each other-- and individual demons. There's not a bad performance in the lot. Every role is perfect. It's a stark, beautifully conceived film with hardly any music in the background except the moody strains of melancholic punctuation music in pivotal scenes. "The Assassination Of Jesse James" is at its core, a morality play, with its harshest lesson in 'be careful what you wish for'...
...be it, easy money, fame, or simply the ability to follow through on Aleister Crowley's maxim of 'Do as you will.'
Affleck learns this lesson hardest. In finally getting close to the outlaw he'd admired throughout his entire young life, he found instead the monster living inside. This is a tremendous film-- as out of character as possible for a saga about the Old West. It's Dr. Faustus on horseback.
October 4, 2009~ 2:50pm
Speaking of haunting- have you ever heard of CAMERA OBSCURA photography? It's produced by taking pictures through two pinholes, and getting the most surprising results. The photos look like dreams
Click on the picture link to see an entire collections of these photographs...they're like looking down a dark tunnel into the subconscious. Fascinating.
October 4, 2009~ 8:15pm
What's this? -you may wonder. Well, my son Matt just gave the news that he and Nicole are expecting their fifth child at the end of January. LOL!!! That's seven grandchildren for this old mare. Holy cow! Maybe Shiloh will get a baby sister, thereby ending her Cleopatra-like reign as monarch. (With 3 brothers to dote on her, she's had the world as her slipper.)
If it's another boy, Matt will have his own 'Four Lads'....glory Halleluiah, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the horde. LOL!! (And Nicky is going to have a round and jolly Christmas, that's for sure!)
October 5, 2009~ 7:30pm
Speak of the rascals, and HERE they appear! From tonight's email (and on Isaac's 10th birthday) the whole gang up at West Point...
....from left to right- Eli, Gabe, Shiloh-- and the birthday boy himself. (And if you have any doubt about what a 'central, demanding role' little Shiloh occupies, one need only look at that face
and you can certainly appreciate how a younger Queen Bee might be a welcome addition.) LOL!!! You GO, girl! (She probably was dressed in something she didn't want to wear-- or perhaps there was a pea under the mattress during her nap. Guaranteed....it was somethin'.) The boys are all her faithful pages. Lordy, lordy....what a crew. :)
October 8, 2009~ 1:15pm
This entire evening I have been engrossed in the most WONDERFUL site. It's the Library of Congress collection of WWI posters, and the art is amazing.
It has Art Deco flair (which I love- often in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge posters, and some Art Nouveau as well -as above)- click on the link and get lost in masterful renderings of soldiers and symbols from many countries~(the German ones are downright scary.) Mostly black, with either primary red or green, lots of skull and formidable looking Deutschland propaganda. (Ah hell, it's all propaganda in stuff like this, right?) Take a trip back in time, both politically and artistically. This is history... served up with panache.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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