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Thursday, December 25, 2008
The curious Case of Benjamin Buttons
The premise of this movie is taken from the idea that man grows from a
baby to a man, then in his dotage becomes a baby once more. I suppose
some writer somewhere laughingly wondered, what if a man really did
become a baby? What would that be like? Then from that the inevitable
and almost cliche idea of a man being born old and becoming young, till
he becomes a baby again, and dies as a newborn. Fortunately the writer
who decided this was worth pursuing happened to be a very good writer
indeed and the result was deeper than the Marianas Trench.
A few points are brought up repeatedly and make a lovely theme. "You
never know what's gonna come at you." and "everyone's life is
different, really." It really does slap expectation in the face, time
and again. Just when you think it would be neat to get younger instead
of older, you get to see how much of a handicap it can be. Yet our
erstwhile hero does not become disabled by it, he just rolls with the
realities it brings and explores the results. Certainly a lesson we
can all learn. Because he doesn't waste time trying to shape how things
should be and instead explores how they are, he encounters richness of
life that makes for a fascinating film. It lasts 3 hours and you are
grateful to be able to stay there, in that curious world, that long.
He is born in 1918 as a wizened old man the size of a baby. As an
elderly child growing up he's isolated from childish pursuits. Too
fragile and crippled to play and so old looking that people treat him
like an elder instead of the child he is.
As the movie pursues the fleeting 20th century it's a wonderful look at
all the eras that went from the roaring 20s right through to the dawn of
the 21st century. I myself relived my own years watching them march by
on the screen.
Does Benjamin get to love? Well yes, the trailer itself reveals that he
has a life long love. He has other loves too, so that side of life is
well attended. He adventures, he loves, he keeps faith with love too,
even while he explores the varied ways of love.
Somewhere deep within my heart some wisdom has been laid. It will
settle gradually there and become part of my inner landscape;
seeming to
be knowlege I always had, even though it was left there by this script.
Well worth the price of admission.
Monday, December 15, 2008
brrrrrr, freezing on the prairies
Oh MY it's cold! Yes indeedy. Highs of minus twenty-five celcius and
as low as thirty-five below overnight. Cold enough for ya? Yah, for
anyone. I was out in it today rediscovering just how tiring it is to
bike in this deep cold. Took me a full damn hour to dress up for a
thirty minute ride! Cripes. I'm exhausted but I didn't freeze. My
toes got unhappy but that's about it.
I had a baby quail here but he didn't make it because nobody fed him. I
thought he'd pick for food but I guess mommy and daddy normally should
take a more active role. I figure they didn't because they were
incubator raised and don't know how. It was quite sad to lose him. I
adored the little guy. I suspected things weren't going right on the
last day when he seemed less energetic in general and I considered if I
should feed him but it was a busy day so I thought I'd try feeding him
next day if he still seemed lethargic. Now I know better. Poor little
mite. I'll figure out a way to feed the next one that shows up.
Dan and I got our Christmas presents early so we could start enjoying
them. Mine is overwhelming me and now, with the cold, I'm even less
inclined to fiddle with it. Frankly I'm amazing busy just keeping the
house cleaned. Or maybe I read too much news these days. I think
that's part of it. Anyway, Dan got upgrades to his computer and I got a
new dslr camera, a pentax k200D. I love it. I just don't have anything
to photograph right now. I'd like to go out and do some photography but
I am too winter-shy lately. It just never seems like a nice day to go
out.
The Christmas trees went up last night. Yes that would be a good thing to
photograph but I'd have to get up and set up the camera and digitally
fix the resulting pictures, all for what? So someone out there might
look at the tree. Blegh, can't be bothered. In my defense, I am still
pretty wiped out by the ride to the dentist. At any rate, they look lovely, not nearly as tacky as I'd expected. I mean, there's five trees, all under three feet tall. Two plain silk ones, one pink one with white lights, one silly silver rainbow laser cut one, and one green one with fiberoptics woven into it. it should look tacky but actually looks charming. I guess I have the touch. We went to the Festival of Trees this year at the museum. I kept thinking it would be fun to do a tree for it, but I think you have to pay out of pocket for all the decorations and the tree and donate it all to the festival charity. That could be awfully expensive. Bad enough to have to hunt down just the right decorations.
Dentist went great. No cavities and so little to clean that we
were done in twenty minutes including the polish! Very nice. The
cleaning hurt though because the device sprays water as it works,
keeping the blade and tooth cool. The water in question was extremely
frigid on account of the cold outside. My sensitive teeth didn't
appreciate that in the least. I'm much better with my fear of the
dentist. Don't really like the current one, mind you. He seems awfully
passive aggressive and it's annoying. They rotate the dentist in the
clinic annually though so he'll be gone when I'm back and a new guy in
his place. There's been some I really liked, one a woman with a touch so
gentle it was like being handled by an angel. What a sweety. She's
doing pediatric dentistry and I know she'll excell in that field.
Finances are okay. Nothing too dramatic, although I'm beginning to
worry about taxes again. We'd better start putting money away.
I got this goofy new vac at the cheapy place last week. Dan was in a
bear mood when I brought it home and had nothing good to say about it
till after it was set up and doing it's thing. It's billed as a central
vac system with trash bin. LOL That's what it is, really, only not
quite. There's a large garbage bin with a powerful vacuum built in the
base. This vacuum is meant to stay in place while the hose is really
long, twenty-six feet of hose and up to ten feet of tubes, so it
reaches pretty much all over the house. it doesn't eliminate the
usefulness of the robots but the other vacuums in the house, the little
stick vac, and the rainbow, are more obsolete. The rainbow continues
useful for portable applications and wet vacuum situations, but the
shark stick vac I could give away. not that I will. I'll eventually
park it in a closet in the bedroom for spot cleaning in there or
something like that. You never know when a small vac will be handy.
It's pretty worn out anyway. I think I've had it around fifteen years,
so that's reasonable. The new machine only cost fifty bucks which is
what I paid for the weak cheap stick vac. With the new system I have
almost no setup or tear-down, just plug in the hose and turn it on, then
put the hose away. It also has a nifty front that lets you sweep debris
up against it then turn it on to suck up the debris! Only real fault is
the disposable bags I'll have to buy.
Indigo is doing really well here. She's the dog we adopted off
freecycle. Her family had to move in with an elderly relative who won't
let dogs in the house. She has gotten much fitter here, better skin and
fur, brighter eyes, softer to pet, and more energy. It's the food. She
sure likes it and because of her Sarah doesn't pull finicky anymore.
They're not close friends yet but they don't have any animosity at all
anymore either, so that's really good. Okay, that's about all I've been
wanting to talk about with a friend.
