East Coast Wanderlog, Part 4

Yesterday was fruitful— at least in my little world.

I found yesterday's entry into my travelogue a delight to write. For 30 or 45 minutes I slipped into a writing-only mental state. In addition, I sent brief emails to two people on Facebook whom I thought might be old friends of mine. One contacted me back right away— Tonya, a woman I worked with at Fedco many years ago, and whom I briefly made a re-connection with about 10 years ago after we ran into each other at the Virgin store in Ontario. It was wonderful to hear from her again, and I look forward to re-starting our friendship yet again. The second person has yet to respond to my email, but I remain hopeful that she will.

Finally, I finished reading an entire novel on my Kindle— my first! It was Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I am nothing if not sentimental about the weirdest things, and I decided that I needed to read the 'right' book to christen my Kindle. First and foremost, it was a pleasure to revisit this book, one which I previously read about 1978 or '79. Secondly, I have to admit that reading the book on my Kindle was a delight as well. I feel like something of a traitor when I say this, but it may have been *easier* to read on my Kindle than in a paperback. Paperbacks require two hands (unless one is willing to do horrible things to the spine of the book!), whereas I could read the Kindle with two, one, or no hands at all, depending on how comfortable I felt at any given moment. I can't tell you how nice it was to set the Kindle down at times and merely click the button for a page turn. At one point, while I was sitting in my car in a nice park, I even propped the Kindle on my steering wheel and read hands free.

On the down side, however, the conversion to a digital edition was not kind to this particular book. All trailing double quote marks were shifted one space to the right, making them appear to begin to speeches, rather than mark the end of a speech. This was frequently disconcerting, making me re-read many sentences to get them back into the right context, and throwing me out of the narrative briefly. Also negative, but at a much different level, I am a lover of the physicality of books, and the Kindle cannot replace this. I have spent too much of my life gripping books and riffling through their pages. This level of addiction will never fade.

Yet, a short time after finishing the book, I found myself at Barnes and Noble, killing time more than anything else. While there I found a few volumes that I'd like to read. Rather than buy, them, I went out to my car and there in the parking lot I went online with my Kindle and searched the Amazon store. I found one of the books I wanted and downloaded it immediately. When I got home later I flagged another volume in Amazon's store as one I'd like to see in a Kindle edition.

I suspect that the next several years are going to be like those five years after CD's debuted and we early adopters had to make many compromises until our tastes could be entirely satisfied by the catalog of CD titles.

Anyway, back on the east coast, only a few hours after landing in Philadelphia and driving into New Jersey, Russell and I have gotten the car restarted after a battery incident. We drove straight home from here— 'straight' being a relative word since the rural roads of New Jersey run all over the place. We continued to pass through many small towns, and I heard many interesting facts from Russell about these places of his youth. (His youth, not really mine, even though I lived in the area from the age of 8 to the age of 15. Except to shop or dine out, we never really wandered the back roads enough to know them well. We stuck mainly to the base or the near-by surroundings.)

20 minutes later we arrived in Crosswicks, a small town, and the center of Russell's youth. As near as I could tell, there are approximately three streets that define the town. I'm sure there are more when you expand the definition of the town a bit, but I'm going to stick to three. Before getting to his house, we circled the town once, in a lap of a few minutes, Russell pointing out significant buildings as we passed by. It's an understatement to say that Crosswicks is an enchanting town. The houses are nearly all Colonial in style. Russell calls them 'saltboxes,' a term which I'd never heard before. A few of the later-built houses are in the Victorian style. FYI: 'newer' in Crosswicks refers to a house that may only be 150 years old.

As I said, Crosswicks is enchanting in appearance, but not mockingly so or ironic in any way. If Hollywood tried to re-create Crosswicks, it would be cloying and sentimental, whereas the real town is very matter of fact. Coming from California as I had, Crosswicks was a step backwards in time. In California nothing is seemingly older than 20 years. Our fast and shallow life style ensure this— as do the fires that sweep through every year now! Not so Crosswicks. In addition, the other big difference when compared to my home is the complete lack of crass commercialism. There is not a single strip mall in the town. In fact, Russell informed me that most of the rural towns were actively fighting off this form of progress, and areas of commercial interest were small and segregated from the actual towns.

So, after a shirt loop of the town, we arrived at Russell's parents' house in downtown Crosswicks. ('Downtown' as defined by central placement, rather than commercial hub.) From this point forward in my narrative, you may want to refer to my pictures on Flickr. (The later ones appear at top.)

I couldn't tell you if my first impression was to be delighted by Russell's parents or by their house. I was immediately charmed by both. Russell's mother is a southern-raised woman who has retained her southern grace and propriety even after 45 years in New Jersey. His father is a jazz musician by trade and dry witted. I found them both to be engaging and the best hosts one could hope for. Every meal we shared was rich in food and conversation.

Their house was an additional mute host, as important to the gathering as anyone else present. Though there is some discussion of its age within the family, Russell is confident that it was originally built about 1757. If you're doing math, that's just over 250 years ago and two full decades before the American Revolution! It has more personality than many people I've met. (I know, what a horribly sarcastic thing for me to say) When you're walking through the house, you know there is not another one like it with the same history or the same absorbed personality anywhere else on the globe. What a change from the land of tract houses!

My room was to be in the attic, two floors up. Russell's family built out the attic a few decades ago, and my room was his room a long time ago. Up two narrow and steep staircases and across one creaking hallway floor, the attic was comfy and warm. There was a worry that I might be cold at night so we moved a heater up the first evening, but, in fact, I had to turn off the heater after a few minutes, and I never turned it on again. My only concern was that the nearest bathroom was on the second floor, across that creaking floor. I don't mean to say that the floor moaned or other wise made a slight noise. No, it made very sharp and loud creaks and cracks, making it impossible to sneak across. I was alarmed every night when i had to walk back and forth across it in order to get to the bathroom, but I was assured that they were all accustomed to the noise.

After throwing my bags upstairs, we all reconvened on the first floor, in the living room, where Russell's mother had prepared a tray of crackers and cheeses and fruits. We shared these treats with an initial round of conversation, wherein Russell narrated our progress from the airport. This turned out to be the pattern at most meals— one or more narratives of the day, always including one from Russell, were shared. From there we moved to the dining room table to enjoy a meal of carrot and potato soup, followed by chicken curry. It was delicious! Russell continued our adventure up to the point where the battery died, at which point both of his parents pointed out the battery device in the trunk, which I also had spotted. Apparently the car was given to these events and they were prepared to deal with it.

Dinner was late and my day had been long so shortly afterwards I retired upstairs for the night. I went to sleep quickly, drifting off to thoughts of how fascinating it was to be in a different bed 3000 miles from home, almost in a different decade or century from the one I had started in.

And that will be enough for today. Please join me again tomorrow for part five and the onset of my first full day in New Jersey.

Until next time!

"A small town is a place where there's no place to go where you shouldn't."— Burt Bacharach

East Coast Wanderlog, Part 3

Back to my old haunt, Starbucks, today. And, just for a real change, it's only Noon as I begin this.

I think I'll begin with a few announcements before delving into the continuing story. First of all, the Poetry Challenge is delayed for a week or so until I finish the Travelogue. I want to be able to concentrate on each in their own turn. Secondly, after the Poetry Challenge winds down (after a day? a week?) I will begin a serialized story. I used to be good at that sort of thing, and I really enjoy the form. I also feel it will be a good step forward in my professional ambitions. So, stay tuned, fun things are coming! (Yes, even poetry can be fun!)

I left off last night with Russell and I driving around the back roads of rural New Jersey in the dark. That's not as dangerous as it sounds! New Jersey is hugely rural— the southern half of the state is one enormous pine forest. Thanks to Joe Piscopo and endless jokes from New York-based comics, everyone thinks of New Jersey as an urban hell. Honestly, that's only a percentage point or two of the state. The rest of the state is fields, sown and wild, and that huge forest I already mentioned. It's not called the Garden State for no reason.

When my father was stationed at McGuire AFB, we lived in three different places. For a brief time, before we could secure base housing, we lived on the shore— in Seaside Heights to be specific. Seaside Heights used to be a popular tourist destination on the east coast, and when we lived there, there was still a board walk as well as carnival attractions. That's about all I remember of it. We— my brother and I— went to school briefly there, and I recall walking through heavy gusts of sand-laden wind. For some reason, I also have a single snapshot in my head of my classroom at the time. My final memory of the place is of our family one day exploring the boardwalk and coming across a spin-art booth. That's where you pay a couple bucks to drizzle paint on a rapidly spinning half-page sized 'canvas.' I really wanted to try it, but my parents nixed the idea.

We eventually secured base housing, and the base housing was technically off base. That is, directly opposite the gates to get on the real base, there was a large neighborhood of a several hundred houses, designed to house the families of the Air Force personnel stationed there. Though there was a chain-link fence surrounding the whole housing area, there were also several gates along the perimeter to pass through. Only one gate had an actual sentry post— the one closest to the real base— and I don't recall now if that was there while we lived there or if it was added later. (Right now, that sentry post is completely abandoned and run down.) The only other thing of descriptive relevance is that two-thirds of the base housing was row housing— about 25 units each, grouped into three long buildings, spaced around a central parking lot and courtyard like a 'U'— and the remaining one-third of the units were solitary two-storey houses. The row houses were largely for the families of enlisted personnel and lower-ranked officers. The solitary houses were for higher ranked officers.

That first night in New Jersey, after travelling along Rahilly Road, we came upon the back side of the off-base housing. A minute later we drove through one of the perimeter gates and I was suddenly awash in 30-35 year old memories. As we drove up and down different streets, I could point out specific units (or sometimes general areas) where my different friends lived. And, all the while, Russell was listening to the list of my friends, looking for the ones that he also knew. The weird thing was, immediately inside the gate, I pointed out an area where a young woman named Diana Gamboa lived. I didn't know her extremely well, but she was in several of my classes, and she worked on the play that I performed in during my Sophomore year. (The Bad Seed, if you must know.) As soon as I mentioned her name, Russell knew her. Apparently she managed to get all the way through our school.

Since we travelled back through this area the following day, during daylight, I will refrain from saying more about this part of the night, except to say that it immediately became apparent that most of the housing units were utterly abandoned. Their emptiness added an eerie edge to my nostalgia. In the 70's this was a thriving, busy neighborhood, with children running around everywhere from morning until evening. We later discovered that there seems to be a mass renovation project going on at the moment.

After leaving the housing area, we hit the back roads again. Russell knows he area intimately, and pointed out countless landmarks as we passed by. This building used to be a school, now it's a library; that building used to be a library, now it's a community center; another building used to be a firehouse, now it's a school; and so on. This continued through the half-dozen small towns we passed through.

Amusing, about the time we decided that we should head back to Russell's folks' house, we noticed that the car was low on gas. We were in Russell's mother's car and thought we should fill it up for her. Passing through several places where we expected gas stations might be and finding none, we eventually went back to one intersection close to the base again where we knew we'd seen a gas station.

In case you don't know, New Jersey is one of the few remaining states where pumping gas yourself is not allowed. An attendant has to do it for you. (Amazingly, despite this need for an attendant's help, gas was 30 cents cheaper a gallon there than it is here in CA. I'm *sure* the gas companies have a reasonable explanation for this disparity...) So we pulled into the gas station, rolled down a window, and passed a credit card out for a fill up. How nice it was to sit there. The problem came when we were finished and tried to start the car again. No go! The battery would not turn over! You couldn't have picked a better two people to throw this problem at. Not only did we not know what to do, but we were in a strange car as well. So, we hopped out. Russell went to ask the attendant if he could provide a jump, and I, getting cold finally, opened the trunk to grab my jacket out of my luggage. Back there, I noticed a self-starting battery designed for just such emergencies. I told Russell, but he already had the attendant on the job. Fortunately for us, a pick-up truck had pulled up opposite us, and the attendant asked him if he could provide a jump. The man, a local, gladly drove around and got us started 5 minutes later. I'm not going to say that that sort of thing wouldn't happen in California, but it sure was nice out there in the middle of rural New Jersey.

Well, my attention is starting to drift, so that's it for today. I promise this travelogue is going to be top heavy and not all days will take me several posts to get through! I hope you're enjoying things so far, as I'm having a great deal of fun writing it all out.

Until next time!

"I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine."— Lou Reed

East Coast Wanderlog, Part 2

Let's begin with a dilemma.

More than anything, I want to be a writer. This blog was created with the intent to get me back on the road. I believe I have the skills— they just need some more use and polish. However, I'm coming to face this realization about myself: I'm not cut out for the solitary life. Time spent alone, even writing, is time spent watching my personal nuclear meltdown clock get closer and closer to midnight. I'm not happy about that fact, as I've spent most of my adult life becoming more and more of a hermit. Simply put, I love being around my friends and my family, and if those two groups aren't available, I'll even opt for sitting in a crowded room with strangers just to hear them talk amongst themselves. This level of social interaction may be great for the writer when it comes to devising new characters, but it plays havoc with the actual practice of writing.  *sigh*

One more thing before I continue with my travelogue. Last night I heard a headline on the radio about more newspapers ceasing publication, followed by the teaser "Will 15 million bloggers be able to cover this gap?" What a ridiculous fucking question. The fact that the the writer of that teaser lumped all bloggers together shows that the problem still isn't understood. 'Blog' started its life as a short way of saying 'weblog,' and that word refers to a nascent period of blogging when people were putting there thoughts and activities on the web as a different form of journal or diary. The news blogger arose sometime after the diary blogger, but somehow managed to retain the same name, despite having a different purpose. So, by lumping together both forms of bloggers into one question, the writer was actually asking "Will 14.5 million online diarists and 500,000 news repeaters be able to replace our nation's newspapers?" It becomes a ridiculous question, which I have no intention of trying to answer. It just irritated me that someone who can't be bothered to word the question properly lumped me into the problem (or issue). We need a new word for news bloggers.

When I left off last night I was on my flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia, back on Tuesday, 03 MAR. The reason I always pick a window seat when the choice is available is because my eyes are glued to the landscape for the 15 - 20 minutes of landing. I love checking out the city or countryside that I'm about to land in. Philadelphia does not disappoint on this level. Seeing all the brownstones and other brick buildings makes me nostalgic for my upbringing. On the east coast, everything is made of brick. On the west coast brick is scarce. The best surprise of our landing, however, was that we flew right over the Philadelphia Navy Yard just a minute or two before landing. Suddenly we were over water, and just as suddenly we were over aircraft carriers! It was an exciting view.

Landing in Philadelphia was also exciting because it meant that I was finally going to (re-)meet Russell. I've mentioned before how Russell contacted me through Facebook. He remembered me from school, but I did not remember him. In fact, sadly, despite all the re-uning and nostalgia of the past few weeks, nothing new cropped up to spark a real memory, which embarrasses me to no end.

I got off the plane, made my way down to the luggage carousel and figured I was likely to meet Russell there since it's no longer possible to go through security un-ticketed and meet your guests at the gate. (This is a barbarism I hope we as a nation can solve at some point. There is no greater joy than stepping off the plane and seeing your party waiting for you!) As the bags were in no hurry to show up, I began scouting around for Russell. I'd given him a description of what I was wearing, but, for myself, I was only working off a couple of his Facebook pics. In a few minutes, however, I someone who just had to be him go from one baggage carousel, read the arrivals board, then look at another baggage carousel. So, I whipped out my cellphone and gave him a ring, figuring any motion on his part to go for his phone would reveal him.

Naturally, he didn't answer the phone. But, he moved past the second carousel and over to where I was standing. As I walked towards him, sure I was right even without cellphone evidence, he recognized me. We shook hands and hugged, and a few minutes later we headed out of the airport with my bags.

Now here's the weird thing: we didn't seem to have an awkward phase. You might expect after not having seen each other for 30 years, that there might be an initial effusive greeting followed by a period of silence, but that didn't seem to happen. That is, if it did, I didn't notice. Maybe Russell will comment and say otherwise. Because we had exchanged so many emails over the preceding few months, it was very easy to slip into a comfortable level of friendship. For my own part, any silence on my part was due to returning to Philadelphia and, shortly afterwards, New Jersey. I'm always quiet with eyes wide open when I'm soaking in new or old scenes.

We took off from the airport and almost immediately established a report that was to last throughout the trip. Because Russell is a historian by trade and passion, he was a font of knowledge wherever we went. Before even leaving Philadelphia, we detoured off the highway and went past all the various ballparks the city has to offer. And, because I am so bad at remembering specific data, this will be the first time in this travelogue where I will not be able to pass on Russell's knowledge, as I've already forgotten. Anyway, it seems that Philadelphia had a football arena, a baseball park, and a hockey rink all lumped together in one big sports complex. At the time Russell asked me if I'd ever been to the old Philly ballpark, and I couldn't recall. I do recall going to Shea Stadium once as a kid, and I do remember seeing the Atlanta Braves play one of the local teams— but I have no idea which team they played against or what ballpark I watched the game in.

Leaving Philadelphia, it was beginning to grow dark, and we discussed plans for the next few days. We had already settled on a tentative schedule, but Russell wanted to know what particular sights in the area I was curious to see again. One of the first I mentioned was the flea market in Columbus, which produced a groan from him. Other than that it was a fairly easy list to determine.

There's one thing I've forgotten to mention already: As soon as I stepped off the plane, I was reminded what Winter is like on the east coast. It was only 22 degrees, and I felt a chill even in the airport. My heavy jacket was stowed in my checked bag, but I wasn't even tempted to pull it out when the opportunity arose. If you know me, you know I prefer cold to warm. I made it all the way to the car in just a short-sleeved shirt.

So now we're driving through New Jersey, and as soon as we pull off the highway, there's snow everywhere. Everywhere! A thick blanket of it. Not a ridiculous door-blocking drift, but enough to crunch through. On the highway, I saw signs with town names that produced memory spikes, but once we were off the big road, I was lost. Occasionally something would seem familiar, but I was otherwise at sea. Probably the most disconcerting thing for a boy straight off the plane from California was the complete lack of housing tracts and strip malls. There were actually miles and miles of open space. Occasionally we'd come to an intersection of two roads, and more often than not, there were just a few signs to guide traffic. Nothing else. If you happened to be on a bigger road, say a two-lane one, and cross another two lane road, there might be a gas station on one corner and a restaurant on another, but there were no strip malls cluttering up the landscape. It was a welcome relief for the eyes!

Without much warning, a few minutes after leaving the highway, we suddenly came up to my old high school, Northern Burlington County Regional Junior/Senior High School. It was night, however, and we did little more than slow down as we drove past. Russell was eager to come back the following day and tour the school, but I was a pessimist and said that I doubted we would be able to. He didn't understand why, but we let the issue lie for the time being. Seeing as how we'd come upon the school from the west side, we drove past and continued on, shadowing the path my bus took when going home in the evening. In fact, Russell began to ask questions about which route we took, which jogged my memory into recognizing a few roads well enough to guide us most of the way. At an intersection close to home, however, we went a different direction, a direction that lead us to Rahilly Road. Readers of my blog may remember the story I told a few months back of our family's adventure on Rahilly Road in the early 70's. By moonlight, it was nothing but a serene country road.

Bow, despite the fact that I am still on the first day of my travelogue, I think I'll break off here for the night. I hope you'll be back tomorrow to join me for the third part.

Until next time!

"The curtain rises on a vast primitive wasteland, not unlike certain parts of New Jersey."— Woody Allen

East Coast Wanderlog, Part 1

I have been meaning to work on this blog post all day. Now it's just after 11 PM at night, my eyes are already itchy with fatigue...

To be fair to myself, however, I did sit down this afternoon to write. Instead of working on this post though, I had an idea for an erotic fantasy that I could post online. 90 minutes and 2500 words later, the little idea was an erotic short story. I was both delighted and angry. Delighted because I wrote an idea out from beginning to end, and angry because it wasn't something I could show off. I don't want to be a writer of porn.

Anyway, 2500 words is a lot of writing, and I can only hope that I've been re-charging my creative batteries since finishing the story earlier.

I believe I left off a few posts ago by saying that I decided to stay up all night and wait for the shuttle to pick me up. In retrospect, despite my previous doubt, this worked out well. The shuttle showed up at least 20 minutes earlier, just after 3:30 AM, and I was off.

The Ontario airport is a dreary place from 4 AM to 6 AM. My flight didn't board until 6 AM so I got to enjoy quite a bit of time in the airport. I am thankful that the TSA in Ontario has softened quite a bit over the last few years. It used to be that the agents would yell at we the passengers like drill sergeants yelling new recruits through an obstacle course. Of course, I always rankled at this because officious authority really gets under my skin. Even when other bigger, busier, and more important airports were already settled into routine, things stayed hardcore at Ontario. Now, though, it's a much nicer atmosphere, and one can actually speak with and make jokes to the agents. I had plenty of opportunity to do this as my carry-on bag got flagged for personal inspection. It seems some of my many electronic devices confused the scanner. But, the TSA agent did little more than open the flaps of my bag and peer inside in order to satisfy his curiosity.

So many other airports have 24-hour vendors or at least early-morning vendors open to service the initial fliers of each day. Not so Ontario. I found one coffee stall doling out joe at $2 a cup. I passed on this, relying on my earlier caffeine at home to get me through the morning and on to the plane.

This first leg of the trip was the least comfortable leg as I had a middle seat for 3½ hours. As you'll discover later in this travelogue, it was not the most annoying leg of my flights. The woman sitting to my right, next to the window was quite pleasant and we spent the final hour of the flight chatting about jobs and the economy. Looking ahead from the first half of the flight, however, I wouldn't have bet that we'd make it that far. As soon as the captain turned off the seatbelt sign, an elderly woman sitting immediately behind me got up and headed off to the bathroom about 15 feet in front of me. (The plane was designed so that all the first-class passengers sat ahead of the boarding door. There was also a bathroom at this intersection.) She was in the bathroom about 15 minutes when I noticed a man stick his head in. By this time I'd forgotten the woman was in there. He pulled his head out and looked around immediately for a flight attendant. One came back with him, and a minute later after she emerged from the doorway, she got on the plane's intercom and asked if there was a doctor or nurse among the passengers. The elderly woman, it seems was having trouble breathing.

Sad to say, my first impulse was one of pessimism, assuming that our plane was about to be diverted to a nearby airport where the woman could be hustled off and out to a hospital. Don't get me wrong, I did feel bad for the woman... but it was not my first reaction. Sorry.

Anyway, three doctors and a nurse immediately came forward. The woman was gotten out of the bathroom and placed into one of the front row of seats in the Coach section.There was room for all the doctors, the nurse, and a few flight attendants to hover around her, but one of the doctors took off right away. The second stayed about ten minutes, talking in hushed tones with the third doctor several times. Eventually an oxygen tank was fetched and the woman was put on air. She stayed in that front seat for about an hour while the doctor and nurse looked after her. Eventually the flight attendant who was working with them asked if the woman could be gotten back to her own seat so the passenger who was usurped could be re-seated. It was decided that that the nurse would switch seats with the guy who was sitting next to the woman's original seat so the nurse could watch after the ailing woman for the duration of the flight. From this point on I got to hear the rest of the story because they were sitting immediately behind me.

During all this time, the captain was placing a call through from the cockpit to the closest airport to the Pittsburgh hospital where the woman's doctor worked. The on-board doctor wanted to know what medications the elderly woman was on so he'd have a better idea how to proceed. Her doctor was never reached, but the woman's daughter, on the ground, was tracked down. It was at this time made known that the woman was traveling with a bag full of her medications. In her confusion while checking in, however, that bag got checked and was currently in the cargo hold. She was by this time thoroughly addled by the situation, and the doctor was having a hard time getting answers out of her. If written out and placed in the mouths of actors, the conversation would have been quite comical, and I had to push back some smiles at the woman's answers. One moment she was fine and breathing OK, and then when the doctor asked again to be sure, she'd answer completely oppositely. I can say on his behalf that despite her wildly oscillating answers, the doctor never grew short with her. He was the kind of doctor one always hopes to find.

A second tank of air came into play, and that tank lasted through the end of the flight. When we landed, the flight attendant asked if we would all remain seated so the woman could be gotten off immediately and into the hands of emergency personnel standing by. However, after the door was unsealed and we waited half a minute or so, she then announced that the expected first responders were not there and we could deplane normally. As I said earlier, the first-class passengers were ahead of us, unseen throughout the flight. As they were de-planing, I looked up and saw that I had shared my flight with Bob Einstein, otherwise known as Super Dave Osborne!

This was how I got to Atlanta. The connecting flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia was much less dramatic, and I got to move over to my customary window seat. As if to scare us, the captain kept announcing the time and temperature in Philadelphia as we made our way. Honest to Gawd, the temperature varied only by a few degrees the entire time and never went above 25. I was glad there was a heavy jacket in my bag!

Well, I'll cut this off now for tonight. Expect Part 2 tomorrow.

Until next time.

"Airplane travel is nature's way of making you look like your passport photo."— Al Gore

The Prodigal Blogger

Hi! Haven't seen you in awhile!

Well, I am safely returned from my most recent trip. For varying lengths of time I was in : Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. I intend to begin writing about it all in full very soon now.

Tonight, however, since I saw several movies since we last spoke, I thought I'd write up my brief movie reviews so as not to disturb the travelogue. Some of these are older movies, some newer. Only one is in the theatres as I write this.

Man on Wire— Russell and I rented this movie while we were in Atlanta and got around to watching it on a day after I'd had a bad headache. While watching the Oscar broadcast this year, I told myself that I needed to watch more documentary features, and this movie was at the top of the list. In case you don't know what the movie is about, in the early 70's a French tightrope walker string his cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walked back and forth on that wire for almost 45 minutes. This movie documents how he got to that point. What amazes me the most after seeing this movie is the fact that all along I knew he was successful in his attempt, and yet I was glued to the story every minute of the way. By the end of the movie I was emotionally wrapped up in the attempt as if I'd been there. This is definitely a movie to see!

For Your Consideration— This is the most recent movie from Christopher Guest, all of whose movies are improvisational. That is, the cast members know the direction of the movie and of their individual scenes, but they are unscripted in getting through those scenes. Previous movies have been Waiting for Guffmann, Best In Show, and A Mighty Wind. This latest movie doesn't compare well to the earlier ones— it also seems to be the most nearly scripted of the lot. While I laughed and enjoyed the movie, it only reminded me how much better Best In Show is. As always, look for enjoyable performances from Catherine O'hara, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley Jr, and many many others. If you've seen the previous movies and enjoyed them, then you need to see this one. However, if you haven't encountered one of these movies before, look for Best In Show before you watch this one.

My Name Is Bruce— If you are a fan of Bruce Campbell, there's no need to say much about this movie. It's another one. See it. If like most of America, however, 'Bruce Campbell' is not a household phrase, then you can probably skip this. Bruce Campbell is the star of many low-budget camp and/or horror films, including most notably the Evil Dead movies. This movie pokes fun at his career. When a 'real' town is besieged by the ancient Chinese spirit of War, Bruce Campbell— the actor himself, not one of his characters— is 'recruited' to fight the monster by one of his uber-fans. Through a trick of the plot, Bruce thinks the whole situation is an elaborate birthday romp set up by his agent... until he meets the monster. The movie very closely echoes Army of Darkness in plot and tone, casting Bruce as a real-life Ash. Many heads roll in a very camp style. Look for Ted Raimi in three different roles.

Kung Fu Panda— I am a fan of computer animation but generally not of the movies produced by computers. Too often the writers and directors aim firmly at the pre-teen crowd, slipping in a so-called 'adult joke' now and then without any real attempt to please an adult audience. Since I am a fan of Chinese culture and martial arts, however, I wanted to see this movie. I was also told by a friend last year that it is very good about capturing true Chinese culture. I can't speak for any supposed authenticity, but I did enjoy the movie. It is easily the best looking computer-rendered movie. Since I had the pleasure of watching it on an enormous HD television, I couldn't help but notice little things like clothing textures, all of which were simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, the lead character, the panda voiced by Jack Black, grew a little tedious and was easily the weakest part of the story for me. I hope the sequel movies will more heavily feature the other kung fu masters.

Watchmen— I saw this movie just this afternoon in the theatre. Because of the R rating and my memories of some scenes from the original graphic novel, I wasn't sure I wanted to see it, but curiosity won out. It's nearly three hours long and by the end of the movie, I was ready for it to end. That said, I give it an overall thumbs-up rating. It's a little too slavish to the source material, and the middle third of the movie is a bit of a wallow, but it looks good and does a very good job at adapting the graphic novel. (Short of a mini-series, there was no possible way to adapt all of the original story. The writer and director here made most of the right and necessary compromises.) When the concluding acts of the movie came around, I did not experience the same thrill and wonder that I did when reading the comic, but that may have been a product of foreknowledge. If you have the stomach for a lot of stylish violence, this is a must see. (I was able to sit through it without turning away— although a few shots will haunt my memories.)

That's it for my movie reviews. I've been in something of a funk since returning home— I'll be back tomorrow, with or without the beginning of my travelogue, depending on whether or not I feel up to it. In the meantime, you can view the pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9017488@N07/sets/72157615357151451/

Until next time!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?