Into the Wild

Favorite scene from the movie...Holbrook and Hirsch on the rocks. Holbrook says with tender wisdom "...from the bits and pieces I've put together from what you've told me about your family, your mother and dad, and I know you got your problems with the church too - but there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds like you don't mind calling it God - but when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines on you..." and then the clouds break and the light shines through a beautiful rainbow and they laugh together, so deeply connected to each other in that moment, but they know it won't last.

• The music - much of it written and performed by Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. His voice hits you from the opening scene with it's deep baritone timbre and haunting lyrics.


• The scenery - shot on location around the country including Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, California, South Dakota. It is so stunning and real it's almost hard on the eyes.


• The literature - Tolstoy, London, Thoreau - great quotes and beautiful narration throughout the story.


• The young girl he sings a duet with on stage (Angel from Montgomery - love the Bonnie Rait/John Prine version of that song too).


• Real acting - Hal Holbrook's eyes in the scene in the truck saying goodbye. Those red brimmed eyes, full with tears, but not overflowing really get to me. Can that moment really be acting? A heartbreaking moment of one friend saying goodbye to another that I'll never forget.
  
• The heartbroken sister - who has to do a balancing act between her parents world and their grief and her brother who she longs for. In many ways she is far more insightful about her brother than he is about everything else. She also comments about her mother's pain. She says "I fear for the mother in her, instincts that seem to sense the threat of a loss, so huge and irrefutable that the mind balks to take it's measure" which is brilliant and beyond what a young girl her age should have understood about her mom.
  
• Emile Hirsch transformation on screen from boy to man - I read he lost 41 lbs. Loved how he portrayed Christopher's nature, how silly he was, the scene where he is eating the apple, singing "Trailers for Sale or Rent", his kindness towards people who fall in love with him throughout his journey, his passion.


• Movie better than the book - that rarely happens.
  

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is a society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more...

-Lord Byron

Night on Grand

Last night I stood in line for ice cream at the Grand Ole Creamery on Grand Ave in St. Paul. I suppose by Minnesota standards it was a rather balmy night (somewhere in the high 30's). It's funny to me that we (Minnesota people) would do that. We didn't wait a long time outside the store, maybe 10 minutes, but you can see inside the big front plate glass window and the scent had the good manners to greet you on the sidewalk. Fresh waffle cones are continually coming off of the hot griddle while friendly employees scoop ice cream and recommend favorites. One popular choice is to share a 5 scoop dish mixing your favorites of the 31 flavors. I couldn't see past the mint chocolate chip to do any sharing. Interestingly when someone orders two scoops of different flavors the scoop girl asks which one they want on top. Apparently that matters to people.

Although there was no line outside Huong Sen's the Vietnamese Restaurant on Grand Ave., the food was fantastic. We started off with Imperial egg rolls and curry cream cheese wontons, which were sinfully good – to me the dipping sauces are what make them irresistible. I had a couple of glasses of shiraz and the curried chicken and look forward to going back to try the hundreds of others items on the menu that looked good. The waiter tried to explain ‘lemon grass’ to me, a common ingredient listed on many items – but I’ll have to go back to try the lemon grass chicken with cashews before I get it.

I'll never be lost again...

My new Navigon GPS unit "Nancy" finds home every time. I can now explore those back country roads that I love so much in Minnesota and Wisconsin without spending hours trying to find my way back home. It may take some of the fun out of my Saturday morning road trips, but the trade off is peace of mind. I can be a little more daring when I travel off the beaten path. Also I can turn the sound off so Nancy doesn't nag me to death in her worrisome tone. She tends to sound a bit annoyed when I don't turn in the direction she suggests, however, she quickly adjusts when I go my own way. She does attempt to talk me in to a U-turn to get back on track, but if I ignore her she gives up with just a little fight. It's a great little system.

Building a city

Normally, I make it a point not to write about work. Today is the exception. Today - March 26 2008 is a day I want to remember. I've never been more proud to live and work in Red Wing and represent our community to a variety of people who all have a passionate desire to help write our history. If this was the last day of my professional life, I could look back and know I had the privilege of working with a group of people that stayed committed to a cause, even when it seemed impossible to achieve. I’m proud to have peers who have an altruistic approach to improving a city and a desire to leave it a bit improved for the generation to come.

Eli's tattoo 'Mudita' comes to mind tonight. He decided on that tattoo so that he would never forget how he felt at a particular moment in time. As his tender age he recognized how easy it is to become cynical and lose sight of a single-minded purpose to celebrate the happiness around us; happiness in the little moments as well as the monumental ones. Today is really a small moment, but I don't want to forget. Maybe I'll get a tattoo that reads 'Eli' on my wrist to help me remember.

A real man's man kind of torture

The brazen bull is an executioner’s device invented in Ancient Greece. Its inventor, Perillos of Athens, proposed to Phalaris; a tyrant, the need of a more painful way to kill criminals to dissuade the poor population from committing any more crimes. In addition, being burned alive was exciting to watch and it was thought that it would be great entertainment during dinner. Remember, there was no CSI or Sopranos to watch back then. A complex system of tubes inside the bull made the victim's screams sound like an infuriated ox, added for the obvious entertainment value.

The brass monster was hollow and had a door in the side, large enough for a man to fit through. A fire lit at the bottom of the bull slowly roasted alive the victim inside. As the metal heated up, it would glow and fragrant incense smoke would rise from the top. After this slow roasting, the victim's bones were said to shine, and bracelets were made out of them. Bracelets for whom? Phalarus ordered Perillos to test the sound system himself as apparently he was very disgusted by this invention. Perillos was ordered inside the beast, the fire was lit and the gathering crowd heard, for the first time, the angry bull as amplified by the screaming inventor. Perillos didn't die though, he was removed from the belly of the hot bull and later that day the indignant Phalarus had him thrown over a cliff which did kill him.

What is fascinating to me is what I did not find when I read about this online. Why a brass bull? How did Perillos think of it? What inspired him? Yes, he was trying to please Phalarus by making a torture device that was pleasant enough to have nearby while eating. The sounds of death and screaming can be so unsettling, especially while dining, so if the goal was really the entertainment factor then by that measure his invention was a success. Why was Phalarus so angry? He couldn't have had any foreshadowing of his own demise - or could he? Yes, Phalarus himself was killed by this very beast when his government was overthrown.

I’ve never spent five minutes thinking about torture devices. Certain things belong in the dark under belly of the world and don't need to be discussed by civilized people, do they? I like pleasant things. I like things that taste good, smell good, and are fun by nature. I like yellow - bright, happy, sunny things. I also like to laugh when I'm being entertained. Maybe I would have sat back, savored the broasted chicken drumsticks, sipped the wine, and enjoyed the pleasant aromas and sounds escaping from the bull. After all, didn’t those pesky criminals have it coming? However, I would have absolutely drawn the line at wearing a shiny bone bracelet.

Oh and really scary…there is a guy called the Brazen Bull on My Space (with over 300 "friends") ,who has a song called Reckless, which has been downloaded 1320 times. Listen to the song – now that’s torture.

Eggstatic it's over

I felt like Eeyore, the gloomy old donkey, about Easter this year. I blame the wintery weather. I don't know what happened to the chocolate bunny and jelly beans that were in this basket?!?

Don't just do something, sit there. Buddhist Joke

I'm going to take the advice found on
my abandoned, chilly porch this morning.
While picking up the paper on a wintery
Easter morning, this little reminder caught
my eye. These words of wisdom will
give me my direction today.
















Oh, Spring....where are you?

The Martian Child

Great quote from the movie (below) and loved watching John Cusack and Joan Cusack. Certainly worth the price of a dvd rental. Despite rather bleak reviews, I thought the story was touching and entertaining in a light-hearted warm family film kinda way. I've heard the book is very good.

"...you and me here, put together entirely from atoms that have been part of millions of other organisms before they became us. Sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron. Held down by this force, that so troubles you, called gravity. All the while spinning around the sun sixty-seven thousand miles an hour and whizzing through the Milky Way at six hundred thousand miles an hour. In a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light. And amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognizant of our own eminent demise, which is a very pretty way of saying we all know we're gonna die, we reach out to one another. Sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out and expect nothing in return. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird enough?"

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900, German Philosopher)

Gloomy

scenes around the neighborhood

View from my dining room in Spring (still can't get use to March snow)

view from my office2nd day of Spring...

Eastern Promise

Viggo Mortensen has given me a whole new appreciation for the beauty of tattos. Pretty good movie too.

Eagle season at Colvill Park

The pro's are out scouting eagles.

It's pretty easy to get good pictures this time of year,
even when Lily is pulling on me while trying to focus the camera.

Lily loves the snow!

Fast processor, not enough memory

Why is it that I can remember a song that was playing on the radio in 1985,while driving with my roommates, and when I hear it can recall the discussion we were having in the car? Or that my 2nd grade teacher scolded me for doing cartwheels in the hallway? While other more relavant things, that are important in my life today, completely escape me?

For instance, sometimes...

I don't know how old I am
I've had to use a calculator to figure it out. It's probably not alzheimers because I know what year I was born and all of that, it's just that if you were to catch me off guard and ask me, I would get within a couple of years, but may not know for sure. You would assume I was lying or embarrased to answer. I was born in 1962. I'm 46. I checked the math.

I don't know how much money I make
Am I completely irresponsible for not knowing this? It's not as if I have no idea. Every year it is part of my annual review...I just don't remember. People talk about what they make and the 3 or 4 percent increase and how much more that will mean next year blah, blah, blah and there is something about my brain that just doesn't compute (or keep track of) that information.

I forgot to change my furnace filter for TWO years!
I've been a home owner for over 20 years and for some reason I forgot to change my furnace filter for over two years in the house I live in now. Someone else was commenting that they forgot to change theirs for a couple of months and I thought, oh shit...I haven't changed mine ever.

Say "Frog"

Check out this little girl on the link below...

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1801895