Martha Marcy May Marlene

The main character is living in a cult with a satanic leader when she calls her sister to retrieve her. Little information is shared between any of the characters in this movie. It is as if they were all living underwater not just in the actual swimming scenes of which there are many, but in the murky exposition of the story.

It is frustrating to hear the older sister ask repeatedly "What the fuck is wrong with you?" and not really mean it. She does not wait for the answer. She does not get it, and neither do we. Poor Martha. She has no one to turn to. Her sister and her sister's husband seem like they want to take care of her, but there is something off in the tone of the direction that makes you doubt it. Poor audience who don't really know what the meaning of the movie is, except that at the heart of it is a sterling performance by the young actress, ...

Well photographed, with effective music, the movie's editing includes transitions that are out of a horror movie.

Who would you become if you had a sketchy childhood with no present parents and then joined a commune where you had to sublimate your better instincts to the abusive leader. What is most spooky perhaps is how Martha repeats the phrase, "I am a teacher and a leader" because it is what her guru told her she was. But we never learn who she really is, even with this string of names.

Occupy Wall Street

When I first visited the occupiers at Zuccotti Park, I was struck by the civilization that had been created, with tables for information, medicine, supplies, and clothes. Clusters of tourists made it hard to move as they snapped pictures of the occupiers. It felt like they were taking pictures of animals in a zoo. The police had erected a tall ominous tower and there were those stiff metal barricades that feel like an instant jail complete with bars to separate people from each other, and make it difficult to assemble. Overhead, a helicopter hovered.

Then the protesters came into my neighborhood. I heard them through my window. The sign says

The Solution:
Campaign Finance Reform
Public Option Health Care
Corporations are NOT People
End the Wars
Close Tax Loopholes
Tax the Rich
Regulate the banks
Pass the Jobs Bill
End corporate lobbying

These are all specific reforms that would reduce waste, garner income, and save lives.


They marched up West Broadway toward Washington Square and Times Square beyond. I walked with them a little, upset at the injustice of the economy.

There are so many police everywhere the marchers go it is as if they are fully expecting something to go wrong. I wonder what the ratio is of police to protesters. It seems greater than 1 to 1.

Good Hair

Chris Rock is a good interviewer. He chooses well who he wants to talk to and gets them to say what he needs to know, and he treats everyone with respect. Yet you know he wants to be funny and sometimes he is. Good Hair is about African American women's desire to have straight hair. He finds the mogul who controls the "relaxer" industry, he has one brief moment with the inventor of "Jeri curl", Al Sharpton chimes in on his experience with James Brown and how they got the look together. Other subjects he chose are Nia Long who is a pleasure to watch and listen to, and all of the competitors at the Bonner Hair Show in Detroit where there is a style contest whose rules.

MoneyBall

Moneyball appeals to me for many reasons. First there is the idea that baseball is rigged for the rich, and with a new formula the poorer teams stand a chance. Second there is the story of a nerd who is overweight attaching himself to an industry that thrives on the elite athlete and taking over the game. Third there is the dialogue which is delivered with real understatement. Of course there is the pleasure of watching Brad Pitt redeem himself in a movie of genuine quality. But especially I love the game of baseball, and this movie does not glorify it but demonstrates why we get so caught up in it, and how heartbreaking it can be.

Higher Ground

Higher Ground
dir. Vera Fermiga

It is hard enough to accept a faith based on suffering and redemption and events that you cannot see, feel or hear, but then once you have embraced this faith, to lose it, that is hard indeed. The world is so much starker. There is a feeling of betrayal, as if you had lived the life of a sucker and that potentially those who did not believe were laughing at you, knowing that the beliefs you had were preposterous in the face of real life.

You see life for the harsh reality it is, with unrelieved suffering, no afterlife, unjust tragedy, cruelty winning over goodness, etc. This is the subject of Vera Fermiga’s first film. I admire her ambition, and her clarity of vision in following a young woman through a life of belonging to a strict Christian faith complete with a community of caring souls, through her lapsing into a more intellectual state of mind that causes her to split from her husband, her faith, her community, and find a path that is her own. The movie keeps a tone of respect for those who are faithful and those who are not. The scenes with the more irreverent sister are especially good.

We care for the woman’s journey, and feel the pain of separation from a world that kept her close and safe. Still, I wish she hadn’t used so many people to play the main characters. It is a little distracting to be matching up characters with new faces.

Vera Fermiga

Back in NY with Hurricane Irene

It is enervating to watch the Weather Channel, yet we are addicted to its radar maps, and its experts in storm tracking.We have grown fond of Jim Cantore, the man in the LL Bean raincoat whose job it is to be blown about by wild and fast winds.  He was the man on the street first in Battery Park City when people were being asked to evacuate, and the sun was shining, and then this morning at Battery Park (which is further downtown, and an older location) where the waters could be seen on top of the walkway where you go to take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

We came back from Sullivan County on Friday hoping to avoid having to unpack the car in the rain.  We especially wanted to acclimate the young kittens to their new home before the storm really took hold.  Something told me to stock up on batteries and water before returning to New York.



All the news about Hurricane Irene was bad.  It was the widest storm ever.  Its path was straight up the east coast of the US.  The European model showed it to have more speed than rain, the US model showed it wrecking havoc everywhere it went.  First there was the wait for the landfall on North Carolina, and many nearly tearful press conferences with the governor whose people were the most at risk, especially in the beautiful barrier islands.

Then the question became how long before Irene hit New York.  Mayor Bloomberg weighed in and said that this was an unprecedented storm.  Governor Christie of New Jersey said the time for tanning was over.  Get off the beach.  Not to be outdone, Governor Cuomo suggested shutting down the MTA in advance of the storm.  Bloomberg countered that Con Ed might turn off power in lower Manhattan and low lying areas.  I yearned to know the definition of low lying area.

Then the people were forced to evacuate from public housing because if they didn't they were threatened with the turning off of power and elevators.  It looked like the mayor and his advisers were determined to avoid a New Orleans type situation where the poor nonwhites of the city looked stranded.  But in this case it looked like the poor nonwhites were being forced into shelters that may not have beds.

This morning I woke up as if hungover from the news and did not turn on the tv or go to the computer.  Out the window, it was very grey, misty.  The rain began to fall but not as hard as some storms where accumulation was an inch an hour.  The streets were empty.  Only police cars with their lights flashing rode ominously down the street.  After a few hours, after much rain, Irene was gone.

By midafternoon I took a walk to see what things looked like.  People were venturing out.

Beautiful Women

It is hard not to notice how shapely and trim and well styled the women of New York City are.  After being in a rural area where many people are overweight and wear clothes to disguise it, this is a big change.





















I love the geometry and shapes of the taped up windows in contrast with the architectural detail of the loft buildings.   Sadly, the subways are still not working.

Simple X

Grids with xes

Rectangles with triangles

Chevrons

Diamonds
 

Security grill

Mushrooms, Part 3

big bolete (bitter?/cepe?)

tawny grizette

worm inside hollow stem of tawny grizette

cross section of bolete, with worm in background inside amanita

Mushrooms, Part 2

Looking for mushrooms,  the more I look the more I see, and the number of mushrooms I find increases exponentially each minute I am walking.  For example, minutes one to fifteen, I find twenty mushrooms of six different genus.

The next ten minutes I then find forty mushrooms.  And so on.  It is hard to move after a while..   Everywhere I look there is something gorgeous, familiar, or exotic and worth studying. I see a red one or a yellow one with bright white scales.  

Then there are the thousands of pinwheels that blossomed over night as a result of the rain.  These dainty short lived creatures attach themselves to twigs with the thinnest of filaments.  I tried to photograph them today but couldn’t get an adequate image, so must rely on Wikipedia.  Unfortunately, their image makes them look enormous when they are the tiniest of featherweights, and disappear once the sun comes out.  The mushrooms in  picture below are ten times bigger than the real thing.  And they line up in a row on a twig, very orderly.

 
 

Just as I was about to turn and head home, I looked down, the leaf litter all brown, and saw first one, then several horn of plenty mushrooms, a kind of chanterelle.

 

Kittens

Jack

Stephen

looking out at the moths