We were readers once, and young

Chris, Annie, and I took in “Dune 2” at the Capitol City Digital Cinemas LUXX Studio Theater. It’s new. Not quite as fancy as the ARQ Theater and a step up from one of the boring standard spaces. We sat in handicapped seating in the second row. There’s a first row but you have to recline and bend your neck to take it all in. The place wasn’t packed although there was a chatterbox who sat a few rows behind us. We took him out with one of those wicked Fremen bazookas. I enjoyed the movie, thankful that the story moved along quickly and I didn’t notice the passing of 180 minutes. Long movies used to have an intermission. That’s gone the way of Ben Hur’s chariot. I plan to write a nasty letter to someone about this.

In my youth (early 1970s), I was a Frank Herbert fan and read “Dune” and “Dune Messiah.” Many of my friends read the books. We were readers, absorbing Vonnegut, Heller, and Tolkien, even Heinlein. My roommate was a former outlaw biker from Milwaukee who had to leave his hometown for some reason he didn’t want to share. My landlord was a friend who lived next door in a matching concrete block house. He worked in construction. His roomie was my brother who also worked construction – there was a lot of it in Daytona Beach those days – and he eventually got fed up with banging nails and joined the USAF. I worked as an orderly in the county hospital by night and attended community college by day. We all were readers and enjoyed talking about books over beer and weed. On weekends, we were in and on the water.

“Lord of the Rings” was probably the favorite. Fantasy and adventure, cool characters like the Ents, Orcs, and Gandalf. We really had no sense that Mordor was created from Tolkien’s war memories. We knew about the war origins of Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” because he writes about it in the introduction. War had been on our minds quite a lot those days. I had not yet read the great novels by Vietnam vets as they didn’t yet exist. I had no concept of what war could do to the psyche. Tolkien fought in the far-off Great War and Vonnegut (and my father) were in the now-ancient war against totalitarianism. Those battles may loom large as this election season approaches.

“Dune” was a favorite because of the turmoil of Paul Atreides and the giant sandworms of Arrakis. That was the part of “Dune 2” that thrilled me and I could watch again. The Fremen and Paul ride the sandworms! Amazing special effects. Our seats shook. This was also my favorite part of the novel, Paul and the Sandworms. Herbert did a great job creating them and Denis Villenueve and crew recreated them wonderfully. These characters and creatures invented by writers and recreated on the screen became a part of us, a part of me.

One other result of all of this reading. We were steeped in satiric humor and (I haven’t yet mentioned “Catch-22”) the ridiculousness of being human. Billy Pilgrim reacts (or he doesn’t) as he time travels through absurdity. Yossarian does everything he can to cheat death. He is flummoxed at every turn. Paddling in a small boat from a small island in the Med to neutral Sweden may seem crazy until Yossarian finds out his tentmate Orr has accomplished it. He ridicules Orr throughout, wants to bonk him on the head for his endless fiddling with the tent stove and his absurd stories. He won’t fly with Orr because he crashes all the time. Turns out, that was Orr’s way of practicing for his desertion. Yossarian runs away in the book and sets out on a tiny dinghy in the movie. I thought it was unfortunate that in the last episode of Hulu’s “Catch-22,” Yossarian flies off on yet-another mission in a B-25.

I really liked “Masters of the Air.” I did wonder in one episode what Yossarian might make of the Bloody Hundredth. On one mission to Munster, only one of the unit’s planes makes it back to base. Earlier, we see others on fire and many airmen in their chutes trying to escape. The novel’s Yossarian spends three years in combat on 55 missions. His commanding officers want to make pilots fly 80 missions which means Yossarian may never get home. He runs.

Flying 80 combat missions may seem outrageous. Rosie in “Masters” flies his 25 missions and is cleared to go home. He tells his C.O. he will stay on to lend his experience to the new, untested pilots. The C.O. then tells him that the men will have to fly more missions and keep flying. They will be targets, a lure to bring up the Luftwaffe to get shot down by our swift long-range fighter planes like the  P-51 Mustang. The C.O. says something like “we plan to sweep the Luftwaffe from the skies for the coming invasion.” Rosie flies 52 missions and survives.

They were brave and many died. It does remind me of Yossarian’s observation: “The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”

In which Covid catches up with me and I ask: What if?

I remember how careful we were during the first weeks of the Covid-19 plague. We got our groceries delivered, left on the porch or (if snowing) just inside the front door. The deliverer wore a mask and we work masks. We brought the groceries into the kitchen and wiped them down with disinfectant and, early on, wiped down each plastic and glass container. They told us that was SOP now, be careful, don't let this coronavirus sneak into your home, invade your nose or mouth, and send you to the hospital where you might not make it out alive. The grocery stores ran out of disinfectant wipes and spray and toilet paper. Our neighbor's son, just back from overseas wars, felt challenged by the circumstances and prowled the town looking for TP -- and usually found some, maybe a few rolls or a four-pack but nothing like the eight-pack we use in the average week. He was a master scrounger, much like James Garner's character in The Great Escape and the plucky William Holden in Stalag 17. In the latter film, Marshal Dillon's brother, Peter Graves, turns out to be a Kraut spy, which made sense with his Nordic good looks. Arness, meanwhile, went to war and was wounded at Anzio and returned to become a vegetable-like alien electrocuted by the good guys in 1950's The Thing (watch the skies!) and showed his range by becoming all-around good guy Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. 

But I digress. We took precautions in those pre-inoculation days. We stayed home. When we did leave the house, we wore whatever masks we could find such as the Colorado Rockies masks I found online late one night. Family members got their first shot in February, followed by another in May. There was something about that shot that gave me some hope, took me be back to a childhood where it was our patriotic duty to fight polio with infused sugar cubes and later lining up for shots at my elementary school. The scientists were in their labs! There was nothing Americans couldn't do! We soon would be practicing our golf swing on the moon!

Crazy days, right? I skated through, avoided the plague like the plague. It was so nice when life opened up again, when we could convene at the movies or at concerts. We went through some political difficulties when Prez T thought the plague was all made up and did almost nothing EXCEPT get the vaccines rolling out to all Americans or at least all Americans that weren't anti-vaxxers. He gets credit for that but it helped little in the election even though he had experts such as Rudy Giuliani and The Pillow Guy as advisors. Then came the pre-inauguration Capitol Riots and finally a president that believed in science and wasn't a buffoon.

Which brings us to today. My son brought Covid home and we all caught it. This surprised me as I had received five Covid immunizations including the 2023 booster and, for good measure, was inoculated against the seasonal flu and RSV. I shouldn't be sick, but I am. At the tail end of this thing, I hope. In our household of four, I am the only one still testing positive. Beginning in the second week of 2024, I accumulated the symptoms until I finally understood that I had a case of Covid. I thought I had Covid. We had used up all of our antigen tests so we ordered free ones from the Feds which took seven days to arrive and then paid for tests that rapidly flew off the shelves. I needed a trip to the hospital ER to get a Covid test. And I was positive. Hey doc, I asked the bleary-eyed resident, what are my treatment options? We have nothing for you, he said. I thought he was kidding but he was not. I was not eligible for the Paxlovid-type infusions my daughter was getting. Heart patients don't tolerate it, said the doc. And I am a heart patient. So, my treatment regimen became Tylenol for headaches and body aches, Mucinex DM and Robitussin for my hacking coughs, and don't forget to take your cardiac meds. He also said I should drink plenty of liquids and try some chicken soup. 

They released me into the wild and I still test positive which keeps me at home. I sit by the window and watch the snowflakes fall. Today the flakes are melting, providing nourishing H20 to my flower bulbs. 

I am lucky. I welcomed those Moderna-made shots into my body and for the most part they did their job. I am sobered by the fact that I was very sick for 26 days. If I caught it in Covid's early days, I would have been very, very sick. I am in Covid's bullseye. I am an elderly man with a heart condition. Covid would have ripped through me as it did with so many. I lost my stepmother and two of my high school friends. Millions died. We don't actually know the real numbers due to some of the lunkheads in charge of our larger states, DeSantis and Abbott to name two. I thought about this at 3 a.m. when a cough woke me up and sent me out to meditate in my easy chair. 

What if? 

On rewatching "Band of Brothers" and viewing "The Pacific" for the first time

Here’s how I used to think about World War 2. It was our father’s and mother’s war. My father joined up early in ’42 and served as a radioman in the ETO with the U.S. Army Signal Corps until 1946. My mother trained on the U.S. Navy nurse program and would have served when she graduated in ’46 but the war was over. They were my heroes, members of what Tom Brokaw labeled The Greatest Generation. Time marched on. We forgot about the war. The fascists had been licked and would never return. The Boomers got old and complacent. 

Next thing we know, the fascists are back, at home and abroad. The fiction of conspiracy novels became the facts of 2023.

So, again, I think a lot about World War 2. The Nasties of 1939 Germany, Italy, and Japan are back except they are right here in our neighborhoods. Trump is Il Duce. Storm troopers rampage at the U.S. Capitol. Chinese militarists plot mischief in the Pacific. Hungary elects a right-wing strongman beloved by the MAGA crowd..

I was glad to see that Netflix returned “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” I’ve watched the first one several times and was impressed. So I watched it again and was struck by the sacrifices made by Easy Company as they fought the Nazis across Europe. The Nazis were our enemy and they and their fascist ideology needed to die.

As for “The Pacific,” that series bowled me over. Saddened me too, for all of those young men who died on islands they never knew existed growing up in small-town America. The savagery of the marine battles for Guadalcanal and Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, were recreated in gory detail. Men who were there wrote memoirs about their experiences that they couldn’t get out of their souls. The Japanese militarists had to be defeated, their twisted philosophy had to die, for the world to have a semblance of peace.

We’ve been told over the years that there was nothing like the scope of World War 2 and the world would never see its like again. The U.S. wasted its treasure and young lives in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a waste. It left a vacuum that China aches to fill over the next centuries. They think in terms of centuries while we measure our lives in microseconds. We must think in longer intervals to survive what’s coming.

A buried cold case comes to light in Icelandic crime thriller "Reykjavik"

The closest I’ve been to Iceland is the Maine coast. No recent volcano eruptions in Maine. Maine weather can be cold but Iceland has it beat. If you speak Icelandic as do 330,000 of the island’s inhabitants, you may be really good with languages but have few people to converse with in Portland or Kennebunkport. Both places offer great seafood and rugged terrain. They share another facet of life: fiction, mainly atmospheric thrillers. Maine claims Stephen King. Iceland claims Ragnar Jonasson.

If you watch Netflix, “The Valhalla Murders” may have popped up on your much-watch streaming series list. Valhalla is Norse heaven or their version of it. A majority of Icelanders share Viking DNA and Iceland was once part of Norway. But the Valhalla in the series written by Thordur Palsson -is, to paraphrase one former resident, “a living hell.” It’s a facility for troublesome youth. It’s also home to predatory adults. You won’t be surprised to find out that one of its youthful residents is now an adult and bent on revenge for beatings and torture and rape by staffers. It takes eight episodes for the police to get their culprit. Along the way, you get many views of snowbound landscapes and slate-gray skies; frigid small towns and one big gray city, Reykjavik.

You don’t need me to tell you that the countries of Scandinavia have a reputation for gloom and doom. Norway claimed Iceland until 1944. Vikings were bloodthirsty conquerors (great sailors though). Icelandic sagas feature much bloodshed. You’ve seen Ingmar Bergman movies. There are also the bizarre worlds of Lasse Hallstrom in “My Life as a Dog” with a 12-year-old’s ruminations on a dying Soviet dog in space and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” with its Iowa teen protagonist as caretaker of his intellectually disabled brother and morbidly obese mother. Also, Sweden is known for the graphic violence of Stieg Larsson, author of three posthumously published novels that begins with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” It gave rise to films in Sweden and the U.S. that were not designed for family popcorn night.

The latest energetic crime thriller from Iceland is “Reykjavik” by Ragnar Jonasson and Katrin Jakobsdottir. The title is important as the 1986 scene for most of the narrative. It also is the setting for the city’s 200^th anniversary bash and the famous summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikeal Gorbachev. Murder happens against this dramatic backdrop along with the investigation of a 30-year-old cold case. On the way, we meet a terrific roster of characters and a plot that kept me guessing.

“Reykjavik” was translated by Victoria Cribb. Hats off to her for keeping the author’s pace and vision. Also, all the Icelandic names of people and locations. We get lots of details of everyday life which includes lots of coffee drinking. This story of death hums with life and makes it an enjoyable read. I have a feeling a filmed version is in the works for the streaming services. The author creates scenes that cry out for the cinema. We shall see what transpires.

One more thing: the co-author of Reykjavik holds a master’s degree in Icelandic literature. She wrote her master’s thesis on another Icelandic crime fiction author, Arnaldur Indridason. She now is prime minister of Iceland and previously was the Minister of Education. So there’s that…

Kudos for the books authors and editors who include a pronunciation guide to the characters’ names and also placenames. I’d like to see more of that in translated works.

After watching Oppenheimer in Missile City, WYO

After watching Oppenheimer with my daughter Annie

Storm clouds on the Wyoming horizon looked like giant mushrooms. No surprise as movie scenes roll through our minds. We recall Oppenheimer’s quote from the Bhagavad Gita “now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Backdrop for the morality play spread before us, a prairie of missiles perched below ground each with a hundred times the killing power of Fat Man and Little Boy sculpted not far from here on a tableland at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The statistics don’t really matter but I have lived my whole life in the Nuclear Age and so has Annie. The Strontium-90 in my bones will always reveal my origins, child of The Bomb, fallout drifted east to Colorado from desert tests, accidents at Rocky Flats and Hanford, a thousand tiny mistakes. Dr. Oppenheimer, I don’t cheer you as did the delirious nuke workers after Trinity. I don’t curse you. I can’t, father, I simply cannot.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" not the remake we expected

Some negative reviews have come in for Netflix's remake of  "All Quiet on the Western Front." They all say the same thing, that the movie is not loyal to the book. That's true -- it leaves out some crucial scenes and adds scenes between the German and French armistice-seekers on the war's closing days. Also, the ending. The famous butterfly ending of the 1930 movie vs. this version which takes its time settling Paul Baumer's life and the armistice. He dies and the camera lingers on his young face, so young and so dead. 

I read Erich Marie Remarque's novel in the sixth grade. It wasn't a class assignment. My father had a massive library and I had a library card as soon as I could walk. Dad's World War II collection was a doozy. "Guadalcanal Diary," Ernie Pyle's "Brave Men," Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, "They Were Expendable," "PT109." He was a WWII veteran, an infantry radioman in France, Belgium, and Germany. He also had World War 1 books, probably because his mother and father both served in that war. I was entranced by the pilots of those rickety old airplanes. I was obsessed with the Lafayette Escadrille and the "The Red Baron" Richthofen's aerial battles. I read all Nordhoff and Hall books, as  both had been pilots in The Great War. I also read their Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy. Even now, I equate their "The Falcons of France" with "Mutiny on the Bounty." Adventure books. Boys' books. They made me yearn to be a fighter pilot and Fletcher Christian. Only in my imagination.

I was a kid and really had no idea what I was reading about any war. As bodies piled up in books, I viewed that as part of the adventure. My viewpoint has changed over the decades. I never went to war, the one of my generation in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos. I was 18 when I graduated high school in 1969. I never served in the military although I was in the Navy ROTC program for 18 months. I felt guilty about my lack of service for a long time, especially in the 1980s when Reagan told us we had licked the Vietnam Syndrome. I had Viet Vet friends. I had peacenik friends. I read a lot of books about Vietnam. There always some nagging sense that I had missed out on something. How odd that seems now. 

I reread "All Quiet" prior to watching the Netflix movie. I also rewatched the 1930 movie, released just a year after talkies appeared. The book and the movie both cover Paul's recruitment and his leave when he confronts those who were so eager to send him to war. They are at the heart of the book. Paul was subject to "the old lie" in Wilfred Owens' poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est." After recounting the deadly effects of a gas attack, Owen ends his poem with this:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori.

That sentiment appears in the new "All Quiet on the Western Front." It just doesn't get the starring role I expected.  

Following the congressional hearings, what will become of Trump?

I've never read a book's first chapter and skipped to the last one. You miss all of the delectable middle parts, the intrigue and humor and character development. The slog, too. That middle can go on forever. That's part of it, though. We get to know the people and the setting. Just how many teatimes can we sit through in a Jane Austen novel? I laughed when when the normally easygoing Ted Lasso tries tea for the first time as a soccer coach in England. "Ugh -- brown water" he said as he moves away the tea cup as if it were radioactive. "Coffee?"

There a lot of brown water in any story's middle parts. 

I watched the live-action opening chapter of the Jan. 6 Committee hearings on June 9 and last night watched the closing chapter. The committee, co-chaired by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, still is deliberating and continues to take testimony. But the public viewing part of the show is over. We know the story now. We await the denouement. Who will be punished and in what way? Will anyone in power pay the price for treason? The rioters, themselves, yes -- some have already been convicted of seditious conspiracy, civil disorder, destruction of public property, etc. They are guilty of the crimes and will pay fines and serve a bit of time in jail.

But what about the main POI, Donald Trump? Will he escape blame for the chaos he spawned? I keep thinking of the creepy paterfamilias Noah Cross  in "Chinatown." We don't know this until the end, but he raped his daughter Evelyn when she was 15 and her daughter is his too. In the final scene set in Chinatown, the police accidentally shoot and kill Evelyn as she tries to escape to Mexico with her daughter. She is the only witness to Cross's crime and now is dead. The cops restrain Detective Jakes Gittes and Cross takes off with his daughter. There's a chilling foreshadowing early when Gittes and Cross meet. Here's the scene:

Noah Cross: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but, believe me, you don't.

Gittes grins

Noah Cross: Why is that funny?

Jakes Gittes: That's what the District Attorney used to tell me in Chinatown.

In the congressional hearing room, the panel seems to know what they are dealing with. They have seen Trump in action since 2016 and know the dangers. What we all suspect is that Trump will be the one who slithers away from any punishment. Co-chair Cheney wrapped up the night with a magnificent speech, which you should watch if you haven't already. She is staking out a claim for the presidency, possibly in 2024. Cheney was flanked by Virginia Rep. Elaine Luria, a Naval Academy grad who retired after 20 years as a commander, and Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a USAF veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. They take their oaths seriously and acted upon them every second during the hearings. One of the few GOP congresspeople who have publicly loathed Donald Trump -- and received death threats for doing it -- Kinzinger had this to say on CNN:

"I truly believe within my heart in five years, maybe not five but definitely 10, you're not going to be able to find a single person that admits to supporting or voting for Donald Trump in this country," the GOP congressman said. "Because they're going to be embarrassed, because their kids are going to say, 'You actually supported Donald Trump? Are you kidding me?'"

Refreshing to hear. History will judge. Our children and grandchildren will judge. Will a 2022 judge convict him of any crimes? Not bloody likely. It would be nice to think that Trump is now on his way to the dustbin of history. But we still have to deal with him in 2022. And worse, we have to deal with the millions of Trumpists who have drunk the Kool-Aid. And there are so many of them in red-state Wyoming, many running for elected office. On Aug. 16, I will switch my party affiliation from Dem to Rep to cast a vote for Cheney. Not much but it's something. 

Saturday morning round-up: Insurrections, a Plant Pandemonium, and Waterloo Bridge

Saturday morning round-up

Watched the first hearing Thursday night of the Jan. 6 Insurrection Committee. Compelling television. I'm not being facetious when I say that its production values were excellent. That's the way it is in visual media and politics. I cringed watching the previously unseen video footage. I was saddened by the testimony of Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards. It occurred to me that one must possess a certain amount of empathy to be affected by the life-threatening injuries suffered by Edwards. You see her being crushed beneath the bicycle rack that served as the first line of defense. Such rank cruelty was visible throughout. American vs. American. It turned my stomach. Will it change minds? I don't think so. Hearts and minds were locked into place when Trump swaggered into the White House in 2017 during the usual peaceful handover of power. We didn't know how much would change during the next four years.  

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming served as co-chair of the committee. She was only one of two Republicans seated on the committee. The rest of them are in thrall to Trump. Cheney was excellent. Made me proud to be from Wyoming. I e-mailed congratulations to her office after the broadcast. This Democrat objects to almost all of Cheney's actions in the House. She supported too many Trump policies. But she deserves credit for taking a stand for the Republic.

Today is Plant Pandemonium at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. Hundreds of flowers will be planted in the beds in front of the Conservatory. Flowers were always meant for these spaces but we ran out of summer during the first year we opened so the director decided to sod the space and we would get to it later. Then Covid happened. Supply chain issues exist in the horticulture world too. We plant thousands of seeds each winter, some as small as the period on my keyboard. Their seedlings are spoken for. We have nine acres of grounds as well as the Paul Smith Children's Village and planters in the park and around town. Thanks for staff and volunteers out planting today. Drink plenty of fluids. Wear sunscreen. Laugh a lot.

Finished reading an intriguing book by Aminatta Forna, "Happiness: A Novel." I was attracted by the title and the author's bio. I want to voyage to different worlds when I read. The novel is set in London and features a psychiatrist from Ghana who's an expert in PTSD and an American divorcee who works as an urban biologist. They are going to meet up -- the author teases you so bravo to her as I kept reading to see what happened. There are gruesome stretches. Innocents are tortured and killed in the world's killing fields. Animals are injured and killed by brutal, unthinking humans. But we meet a wonderful cast of characters, cab drivers and cooks and hotel doormen, many of them African immigrants, whom the main characters befriend. You know those Africans and Asians and Latinos you observe on your business trips to big cities? They all have a story. Forna makes sure to tell them and see the rich biospheres of a city, a place where humans and foxes and coyotes try to exist side-by-side. I was impressed by many scenes that take place on and around the Waterloo Bridge. Books and films have used the bridge for a backdrop. One of them, "Waterloo Bridge" is a wartime drama (flashback to World War I) in which two mismatched people attempt to match up. Drama and heartbreak ensue. This can happen in novels too. 

Read it. 

Nukes in the news -- again

Not enough people have seen "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

It's satire, sure, with a concept that a loony nuke base commander could trigger a nuclear war. General Jack D. Ripper is obsessed with Commies poisoning "our precious bodily fluids." His executive officer, a British captain, comes close to derailing the general's plans but, as we all know, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and mega-kiloton atomic warheads.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

Dr. Strangelove's closing lines, sung by Vera Lynn as the Russians' Doomsday Machine causes bombs to go off all over the world.

That's all, folks!

The movie's over. We laugh. Shake our heads. Punch the remote to "Bridgerton."

The premise seemed ridiculous to moviegoers in 1964. It seems ridiculous again. But not quite so. There is an unhinged megalomaniac in Russia threatening to use nukes if the West doesn't stop arming Ukraine. 

"Dr. Strangelove" got its start with a novel, "Red Alert," by Peter George. It's a thriller. I read it as a teen, that and "Fail-Safe," co-written by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. Also, Nevil Shute's "On the Beach." I read about nuclear Armageddon. It seemed so far-fetched. At the same time, I was reading the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series. They sparked my imagination, turning me into a lifelong fan of fiction. Tom Swift's dirigible/biplane hybrid ("Tom Swift and His Airship, or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud") seemed as real to me as nuke bombers and missiles that could incinerate the planet. I was lost in a fantastic world that I never really grew out of.

At the same time, my father worked on installing Atlas missiles in hardened silos from Washington state to Kansas (Wyoming too). He was a contract specialist, an accountant with Martin Co. (Martin-Marietta). He was charged with making sure that the missiles and their underground homes were built correctly and within budget. We moved around with Dad and his work. I never really thought about how his job might lead to a cataclysm. But he did. He recommended that I watch Strangelove and read World War III novels. He didn't talk much about his work but I know he wanted me to be a reader and an informed citizen. 

Our family got a lot out of the Cold War. It never was a hot war, as some predicted, but it shaped me. 

So now, when Putin mouths off about nukes, I hear General Jack D. Ripper. I should take the guy more seriously as I live in the crosshairs of Nuclear Alley here in southeast Wyoming. If MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) arrives, I will have precious little time to worry about it. I never really stopped worrying nor did I learn to love the bomb. 

I revel in its absurdity.

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

Vera Lynn's singing takes us back to World War II. When Vera sang, British soldiers listened. They were in the fight of their lives around the globe. At home too, as Hitler waged a saturation bombing of a civilian population. Putin now saturates Ukraine with rockets and terror tactics. 

My father, a World War II G.I., liked Vera Lynn. Later, when I had a chance to think about it, I wondered if he minded that Vera Lynn's song had been used for a fiery conflagration that ended the world. He was especially fond of "The White Cliffs of Dover" which he must have heard many times in England as he trained for the Normandy invasion.

This:

There'll be bluebirds over/the White Cliffs of Dover/tomorrow,/just you wait and see

And this:

There'll be love and laughter/and peace there after,/tomorrow,/when the world is free

There may be a song like this for Ukraine. There should be.  

Outer Range, set in Wyoming, asks the question: "What is that weird hole doing in my pasture?"

I saw Josh Brolin on Stephen Colbert this past week. He was promoting his new Amazon Prime series “Outer Range.” He said it was part contemporary western and part supernatural thriller. I am all for new takes on old themes, especially if they focus on the West. Streaming services have brought us “Yellowstone,” “1883,” and “Longmire.” Wyoming and vicinity are the setting for a lot of them. They are not filmed in the state (New Mexico and Alberta get the honors) but were created by Wyomingites C.J. Box and Craig Johnson, among others. “Outer Range” is set in fictional Amelia County, Wyoming, making it county number 25 after Johnson’s county 24, fictional Absaroka County. “Longmire” fans convene every summer in the very real town of Buffalo in Johnson County. I just read some interesting and not entirely complimentary stuff about the area in Helena Huntington Smith's 1966 book “The War on Powder River: The History of an Insurrection.”

In “Outer Range,” an evil cattle baron named Wayne Tillerson, most likely a descendant of one of the bad guys in the Johnson County War, is trying to steal prime land from a neighboring cattle baron (Royal “Roy” Abbott) who is burdened with debts, a dysfunctional family, and a bottomless hole the size of a barn in one of his pastures. The hole makes ethereal noises and, if you should fall in it, you will receive visions of the past and future before the hole spits you back out. An American bison, two arrows jutting from his hide, stands by the hole and snorts.

This is not your granddaddy’s ranch.

The most interesting part of the first two episodes is a showdown between Wayne and Royal. In the olden days, a couple shots of red-eye, six-guns and a dusty street would be involved. In 2022, Dwayne is a bed-ridden invalid who wears his cowboy hat in bed. His drink of choice is Clamato juice. Royal confronts him over the land grab. Here’s their exchange:

Wayne: Roy, you’re on my land (sips Clamato juice on ice)

Royal: Let’s be honest here Wayne, no one’s stealing anything but you.

Wayne: This is Wyoming, Roy. It’s only ever been stoled since the day it got its name (knocks back the rest of the Clamato).

Roy leaves, noting that the lawyers will have to figure this out.

I had to rewind several times to get down this exchange. Wayne’s lines may be the best since Owen Wister's Virginian told Trampas, “When you call me that, smile.”

I am a fan of western movies. I gravitate to quirky westerns such as “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “High Noon,” "True Grit," and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” I like the classics too. That includes anything by John Ford. Just watched the original “Stagecoach” on Netflix. During the pandemic, I finally watched “Lonesome Dove” and loved it.

I will watch the rest of “Outer Range.” The big hole on the prairie intrigues me. I like Josh Brolin and his gruff portrayals (remember “No Country for Old Men?”). There’s some weird details in the script (Clamato?) and I like weird details. Must be the Irish in me.

Revisiting Lonesome Dove

I've been watching movies that paint a different portrait of the American West than I was taught in school. 

"Lonesome Dove" on Prime Video tells the tale of two aging Texas Rangers that drive some cattle to Montana. Cattle drives were mighty popular when I was a kid. "Rawhide" featured a young Clint Eastwood as cattle drover Rowdy Yates. "Red River" was a pretty good John Wayne movie about a cattle drive. I did my early growing up in Colorado where the stockyards employed many and the annual Stock Show was basically a promo for Eat More Beef.

I did not see "Lonesome Dove" when it was first aired in 1989. I didn't need another western as I'd seen them all. I was mistaken. "Lonesome Dove" is an eye-opener. Accurate about the violence that was the American West. The drovers die in terrible ways: death by water moccasins, death by hanging, death by Indians (of course), death by stupidity. Fine acting by Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and Diane Lane. 

It was based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel of the same name. The late Texas author was known for vivid portrayals of the hard life faced by cowboys, Indians, women, and lawmen. I haven't read any of his books which I chalk up to ignorance. Most mainstream novels of the West are formulaic. That suited me fine when I was eight. I grew up and needed to know the real story.

Last night I watched "The Revenant" on commercial TV. The ads were annoying but I stuck with it. Brutal in its honesty of what it must have been like in the fur-trading days of the 1800s. Hugh Glass is leading a trapping expedition and is attacked by a grizzly. The almost-dead Glass is abandoned by his colleagues who want to flee an Arickaree war party. Glass doesn't die. He wants revenge and he eventually gets it as he struggles to get back to "civilization," which is not very civilized, where male Indians get hanged and females get raped. The setting is Wyoming and Montana and the scenery is beautiful. Bad things can happen in beautiful places.

Realistic westerns appeared before "Lonesome Dove," mostly in feature films. "The Wild Bunch," "The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Little Big Man," and "The Horse Soldiers," among others. Many came out of the ferment of the 1960s and '70s and may have been meant to reflect the nightly horror show from Vietnam. The Air Cav cowboys flew in on choppers and the setting was jungle instead of wide-open spaces. But we got the picture.

HBO brought us westerns that were more like gangster films, "Deadwood" and "Hell on Wheels" to name two. Deadwood's founding year of 1876 featured at least one murder a day. There would be hell to pay if Deadwood in 2020 had 365 murders. Deadwood's godfather was diabolical dance hall proprietor Al Swearengen. He liked to feed the pigs.

"Hell on Wheels" portrayed life in end-of-track towns along the UP line in the 1860s. People were shot regularly and there was evil afoot in the many bars and brothels that were the main features of these towns (Cheyenne was one). The "Hell on Wheels" burg of Benton 11 miles east of Rawlins consisted of 25 saloons, five dance halls and a place called "The Big Tent" where fornication went on in one part of the tent and, in the other, physicians treated diseases spawned on the premises. Benton's heyday was in the summer of '68 and is now officially a ghost town. 

Am I shocked that humans behaved like humans in the days of my great great grandparents? No, that's history. We all need to know that human misdeeds were not always chronicled in our fourth grade history books. In fact, the texts were whitewashed to tell a sanitized version of history. We need to know the details so we don't repeat them. We will, of course because that's what people do. The hope is that in the future we will be more like the space voyagers of "Star Trek" and its Prime Directive than the bastards who slaughtered Natives at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. Vietnam, too, and Iraq. Maybe we will learn. Maybe not. At least we will have somethings to guide us other than tired myths.

Many fine history-based books and poems have been written. We'll discuss those in a future post.

La Petite Fadette: the novel by George Sand and the silent movie with Mary Pickford

"La Petite Fadette" is a novel by George Sand published in 1849. I'm reading it now after watching a 1915 silent film, "Fanchon, the Cricket," loosely based on the book. I'm a fan of the silents shown on TCM on Sunday night. In "Fanchon," Mary Pickford plays the lead. She was a darling of Hollywood at the time and in 1919 formed United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin. She plays Cricket, named for her small stature and hyperactive nature. Some people in the village consider her a witch because that's how the villagers saw her grandmother. Fadette and her little brother Grasshopper live with her in a tumbledown cottage out in the woods.

The cinematic Fanchon falls in love with the local hottie named Landry and scandal erupts because he is from a "good" family and she is not. Common plot line for many books and films. In the end, romance prevails and the two are married. The end.

As the credits rolled, I noticed that it was based on Sand's book. Wonder what the book is like? Despite my time as an English major, I never read any of Sand's numerous works. She's not really a part of the canon, at least when I was in grad school. Women authors were a few in the 1980s version of the big list. An oversight, as she was a woman author when that was very rare, author of many novels (one of my grad school mentors had the 28-volume English language set in his library). Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin and called Aurore by friends and family. She lived the bohemian life in Paris, wore men's clothing, smoked, and had numerous affairs with the literati and some musicians, Chopin, for one. Victor Hugo liked her work. Sand spent time on the barricades during the 1849 revolution. 

No surprise but "La Petite Fadette" is quite different from the Pickford film. In the novel, Fadette is small and describes herself as ugly, obviously no Mary Pickford, although Fadette is not always reliable in describing herself. She is dirty and wears tattered clothes. Still, she exerts a strong presence. Landry protects her during the village's feast day and even dances the bouree with her, which scandalizes the bourgeoisie. I was taken with the character. She's more outspoken than I expected, less a victim than a young woman trying to find her way in the world. Like her grandmother, she is endowed with mysterious healing powers, which she utilizes late in the novel with Landry's twin brother, Sylvinet. 

The prose is a overwrought, keeping with the style of the era. Long passages of dialogue and description. The author inserts her own opinions. She obviously wrote at a brisk pace which left little time for editing. Chapter 20 seemed to go on forever as Fadette and Landry critiqued each other. By that point, I was attached to the main characters and into the story.  

I am a strong advocate of editing and revising. But sometimes we lose some of the sloppy humanity that's a part of all good books. Think about Dickens and Tolstoy. Dickens was paid by the installment as his work appeared serially over weeks and months. Tolstoy, well, if you've read "War and Peace," you are familiar with endless descriptions of formal balls, philosophical discussions, and Napoleon's very, very long siege of Moscow. It also was first published serially in The Russian Messenger. W&P is wordy and unwieldy. Tolstoy didn't even call it a novel, saying that "Anna Karenina" was his first novel. What can I say -- I see it as a novel.  

George Sand wrote 59 novels and 13 plays. The Russians, especially Dostoevsky, were crazy about Sand's work during her lifetime. She's been featured in at least four Hollywood movies. "A Song to Remember" with Merle Oberon as Sand and Cornel Wilde as Chopin. I can't say I'll read more of her books, although not all are available in English. I have read one, which should please my English professors. It pleases me, too. Oh, and I saw the movie.

It ain't spring yet, but I can see it on the horizon

In normal years, spring is opening up time in Wyoming. Bright morning sun streaks through the windows. We open the windows to let in the fresh breeze. Then we close the windows when the 60 mph gusts blow in. We wave to our neighbors the first time we see them outside since October. I check on the bulbs planted last fall t see if anything is blooming. That often happens with the spring snow, lilies making a show of it by bursting colorful heads through the white blanket.  

Spring 2020 brought a radical change. We closed down just as the weather turned nice. Houses became fortresses against the gathering plague. Schools closed. Jobs disappeared. Events cancelled. As the fatalities rose, we hunkered down. Stores delivered our groceries. Beer could only be bought by stealthy visits to drive-up windows where you almost wanted to whisper your order through your new mask that didn't fit. Our downtown craft distillery stopped bottling vodka and churned out plastic bottles of hand sanitizer. Overnight, Zoom became a thing.

This spring feels different. It won't officially be spring for another 25 days. But we yearn for it. Chris and I got our two Covid shots of vaccines that didn't exist this time last year. I've ordered seeds for sprouting -- I'm already a little late doing that. We are already a week into the Lenten season and it seems like a miracle that the plague is receding. I am blessed to be alive and among the vaccinated and I can pay my bills and buy groceries. I have a roof over my head. I'm retired so my 8-to-5 working days are behind me. 

I thought about all of this last night as I watched "Nomadland" on Hulu. Thousands of my fellow Americans live in vans and small RVs. They crisscross the country looking for a place to land and a place to work. They exist on disability checks and small pensions. Work service jobs when they can get them. Their humanity comes through in a film that features real people and real places. Credit goes to director Chloe Zhou and lead actor Frances McDormand who transforms from Fran to Fern in the film.

Some people opt as a life as a nomad. Others are forced into it due to substance abuse, mental illness, or circumstances beyond their control. It raises big questions about the state of our country. But it merely asks you for empathy which is in short supply after four years of the hate and greed of Trumpism. Not too much to ask. I came away from it with the same feeling I had after watching "The Florida Project." In it, a different kind of nomad moves from cheap motel to cheap motel in Orlando's Disney neighborhood.  The film shows a lot of heart notably in the form of the six-year-old main character.

We haven't yet processed the Time of Trump. If you carried a bleeding heart into the 2016 election, it has been bleeding since. We may be suffering from a type of PTSD, a reaction to four years' worth of daily outrages. Reading good books and watching good movies may help us heal. It may also help us to greet our human comrades with good will when spring opens our doors.

"Meet John Doe" -- a 79-year-old movie has something to say about 2020

I watched Frank Capra's "Meet John Doe" Friday night on Turner Classic Movies. I've seen it before but not in the Trump era. I see it now with new eyes. It's a story about decency. A hackneyed subject, boring even. But a lively tale in the hands of director Frank Capra.

If you don't know the 1941 movie, here's a synopsis. After the credits roll over scenes of Depression America, the film opens with a workman taking a jackhammer to a chiseled stone logo: "The Bulletin: A Free Press Means a Free People." It's replaced by a shiny new metal sign: "The New Bulletin: A Streamlined Paper for a Streamlined Era." 

Cut to the newsroom. An officious young clerk strolls in, points at each expendable employee, whistles, makes the universal cutthroat sign across his neck, and clucks his tongue. The somber looks on faces reveals the awful truth -- that they are now cast loose into The Great Depression with no real safety net. 

Mitchell is one of them. But she is not going to take this lying down. She marches into the editor's office and pleads for her job, saying she will take a pay cut from $30 to $20. Editor Henry Connell is a grizzled old school editor brought in to make the paper, now owned by millionaire businessman D.B. Norton, more exciting and more "streamlined." He has no patience and no job for Stanwyck and shoos her from the office, reminding her to write her final column before she leaves.

What comes next? It's a Capra-style exploration of celebrity, greed, patriotism and fascism. It was released in 1941, almost two years into the war and just a few months before Pearl Harbor. An unsettled time, maybe as angst-ridden as 2020. As the plot unfolds, I had Trump on my mind. Couldn't help it. And I kept contrasting Capra's worldview and the one that emerged after the 2016 presidential election.

In the movie, Mitchell's parting newspaper column is a fake letter from a John Doe who rails against society's ills and says he will make his point by jumping off the city hall building on Christmas Eve. An editor, who's also been fired, comes to Mitchell and says her column is two sticks short. She hands him to new column and he runs with it. When printed, the column causes an uproar. The competing newspaper calls it a fake. Mitchell is rehired at a higher salary and told to produce John Doe. She finds a washed-up pitcher named Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper) who bums around the country with The Colonel (Walter Brennan). Mitchell persuades Willoughby to be Doe and the plot thickens.

Doe takes to the role. He eats regularly and has money. The Colonel warns him of "the heelots," those heels who just want your money. The Colonel is the voice of reason to Doe's aw-shucks naivite. He urges Doe to flee before it's too late. But Doe is stuck -- he likes the attention and having money ain't a bad thing either. Meanwhile, Norton gets his hooks into Mitchell as Doe warms to his role until a radio appearance pushes him over the edge and he flees with The Colonel. Doe is recognized at a diner and the crowds swarm to see him. He sees that he, as John Doe, has made an impact. He returns to the city and forms hundreds of John Doe Clubs, financed by Norton.

Norton is the stand-in for every fascist ascendant in the 1930s and 40s. He issues orders. He has his own paramilitary force (Norton's Troopers). He feels that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and needs a strong hand to restore order. His ultimate goal is to transform all those members of John Doe Clubs into compliant voters. But Doe, Mitchell and Connell rally to stymie Norton's plans. That's a spoiler but, if you know Capra films, that's how they end. Decent people win, the grifters lose.

Which brings us to the America in 2020. Decent people are everywhere. They heal the sick, feed the hungry, help their neighbors.

The indecent are always with us. Perhaps we just notice them more in our time of greatest need. Trump, of course, is Indecent American No. 1. Just the other day he was asked was about Rep. John Lewis's contributions to society. He replied that they weren't so great, that Lewis didn't show up for Trump's 2017 inauguration. He wasn't alone of course -- many thousands had something better to do on 1/20/17. Trump didn't even bother to attend Lewis's farewell at the Capitol Building Rotunda.

Everything is about Trump all of the time. He has his own band of Norton's Troopers. They were out in force the night that Trump decided to go to a church he had never attended to hold up a bible. Donald's Troopers tear-gassed and beat down peaceful protesters.Then Trump's Troopers traveled to Portland to do their dirty work. 

In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had its own problem with fascists. The German-American Bund (America's Nazi Party) had thousands of members. Some 20,000 of them showed up for a rally at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 20, 1939. Bund members battled with protesters outside the Garden. Trump's pop probably said "there was good people on both sides." The Bund supported Hitler and his thugs, possibly history's most indecent group although there are a lot of contenders.

We need decency in film. Not the National Legion of Decency version. The Catholic org rated films and condemned some, telling Catholics that seeing one was a mortal sin and would send you straight to H-E-L-L. To teens in the 1960s, it was a handy guide for those films we just had to see. Censorship tends to backfire on the censor. We youngsters were also keen on reading banned books. I'm no youngster now but I always check the banned books lists to make sure I've read them. It's the decent thing to do.

You can watch "Meet John Doe" on YouTube. For a story about pre-war conflicts between Nazis and protesters in New York City, read Irwin Shaw's short story "Sailor off the Bremen." 

Hunkered down at the pop-up drive-in on a May Wyoming evening

Our first public outing of the COVID-19 era was to a combination drive-in concert and movie. It was held in a pasture on the Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne. It had a gentle slope so cars could park and most of us could see the inflatable screen and the covered bandstand. 

When we arrived about 7:15 p.m., a line of cars, trucks and SUVs stretched out of the ranch onto the I-25 service road. Chris said it was a sign that everyone is just aching to get out and do something normal and fun. I agreed. A great idea that entertains and keeps us safe. Kudos to the ranch and Blue Pig Productions. They planned for everything including the rain squall that swept through just as the headliner band started playing. We had seen the storm front assembling as we drove to the event along Terry Ranch Road. A typical one for late May. A black swatch against the sun lowering over the Rocky Mountains. Pretty and ominous. But these storms are hit or miss. Sometimes you get missed and sometimes you get hit. 

This one hit us just as we got settled into our space. The sounds of the warm-up band came over the car radio at 90.7 FM. Raindrops speckled the windshield as Sean Curtis and the Divide took the stage. As the band played the rain fell harder, swamping our windshield and the band. But they performed uninterrupted until the lead guitarist's amp shorted out and he had to flee. The rest of the band members played on, wet and cold. "I can't feel my fingers" said the bass guitarist after one of the songs. But they played on. Good stuff, too. A C/W band with a touch of alt-country and Americana, a sound a bit like Drive-By Truckers or Turnpike Troubadours. 

The emcee, Dominic Syracuse, had prompted us to applaud by honking our horns. We did. By the time the band wrapped up their last song, the sky was clearing and the sun colored pink the retreating clouds. 

We picnicked in the car. Daughter Annie joined Chris in a preemptive strike at the port-a-potties. Annie returned with some chicken nuggets and fries from the snack stand. I ate ham and cheese and crunched chips. Cookies for desert. I drank sparingly because I didn't want to face the trip to the johns with my walker. I would have felt silly, all those people staring at the poor cripple poking along on the prairie. I don't know why I should care but I do. More my problem than anyone else. 

Everyone returned to the car and the movie started after some of the staff adjusted the screen that kept tilting in the post-storm wind. Wyoming not the place for anything inflatable. We're seen inflatable Halloween and Christmas decorations flying down our street. Unanchored bounce castles have gone airborne in summer gusts. A brisk wind came through the annual Superday event a few years back and blew tent awnings and brochures and hot-dog wrappers to Nebraska. 

But "Back to the Future" came on with the darkness. There was only a brief period when the wind tilted the screen and the actors' heads disappeared. I forgot how much fun the movie was as I hadn't seen it for decades. I didn't think of COVID-19 for two hours. That's what it's about, right? We want it like the old days when people could venture out safely and go to concerts and drive-ins. We want to be closer to people that a car-length away but that's still in the future. 

The ranch staff cleared us out quickly. They had some cleaning-up to do and we had the trek home via the interstate. I hope the ranch does it again. This high-risk guy wants to stay safe but I also want to be back out in America again. Summertime America. It's a short season here in the High Plains. Short and glorious.

See you next time. 

Sunday morning round-up: Martians, Democrats and a dying man's love for Abba

I am blogging this morning from the picnic table on our back porch. Eerily still and warm for the Ides of November. Cat snoozing on the chair next to me. He was up and about for an hour this morning and it apparently wore him out. Today is the last fall lawn-mowing. I also will winterize my garden. I'm a bit tardy with that but so much else has been going on. The weather forecast calls for snow Monday through Wednesday, so this is the day to get out and rummage around in the yard. Depending on who you believe, we will get from a couple inches of snow to a foot. We shall see....

Watched the Democratic Party debate from Des Moines, Iowa, last night. Gathered with my Dem friends. We ate and drank heartily. Who won the debate? The Democrats, as the three candidates came off as thoughtful adults in contrast to the swarms of whiny Republicans who take the stage in their debates. Bernie Sanders is a strong presence, his politics more aligned with mine than those of Hilary. However, Hilary is the one who can bring the big guns to bear against the Republicans. She's more corporate than the Democratic Socialist Sanders. But the Repubs will be fighting tooth-and-nail for this election, and there is so much at stake. Hilary Clinton is the one.

I'm reading "The Martian" by Andy Weir. It's a fast-paced, tech-laden novel about a stranded astronaut on Mars. Maybe you've seen the movie, but I haven't -- not until I finish the book. The author is a software engineer and "lifelong science nerd," according to his bio. This also is his first book. I hear that he self-published the book before it gained fame as a best-seller and a Matt Damon flick. Many of us writers experience fits of jealousy about such fortunate events experienced by others. I'm one of them. Green with envy. Also blue with admiration (is there such a thing?). I am about thirty pages from "The Martian" finish line and I'm hooked.

I published a short piece several weeks ago. Silver Birch Press in L.A. features an ongoing series of themed submissions. I submitted a 200-word short to one called "When I Hear that Song." The challenge was to write a prose piece or a poem about a specific song inspiring a specific memory. Many songs, many memories. But one jumped out at me. My father, dying from prostate cancer, got a yen for the music of Abba. He never was a pop or rock music afficianado. Somehow, the songs of a Swedish pop group spoke to him. So, over the course of a few days I honed a 200-piece called "S-O-S," based on the Abba tune of the same name. Read it here: https://silverbirchpress.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/s-o-s-story-by-michael-shay-when-i-hear-that-song-series/. Silver Birch featured it along with a snazzy photo of Abba and my bio, which didn't get the same attention to brevity as did "S-O-S."

Local art walk this evening -- and a meeting about energizing the local art scene

This is the second Thursday of the month so that means...

...the Art Design and Dine art walk from 5-8 p.m. Eight local galleries and exhibition spaces are open with new work this evening. Mixed-media artist Pravina Gondalia (sample of her work shown above) will be at Glen Garrett's Gallery, Haitian art will be on display at Clay Paper Scissors, glass artists at Prairie Wind and Deselms, and the art of Ringo Stavrowsky at the Link Gallery. Check out the ADD web site for more info on the shows.

Also at the Link Gallery -- Alan O'Hashi will announce the line-up for the Cheyenne International Film Festival. The first festival last spring was fantastic and I'm looking forward to some boffo movies (and box office) this year. Get more info at www.cheyenneinternationalfilmfestival.org

And don't forget the food and beverages at Ruby Juice and the Laramie County Public Library Cafe, co-sponsors of the art walk.

Prior to the art walk from 4-5:30 p.m., the Cheyenne Arts Council will host a meeting at the Historic Atlas Theatre, 211 W. 16th St., to "present its mission, image, goals and action plan -- the arts community is invited to express interest and to get involved." Get more info at 307-222-4747 or www.cheyenneartscouncil.org.

Artists and writers and performers and arts workers and arts funders and arts appreciators should show up. Remember what Woody Allen said about "showing up." It's especially important now as the Cheyenne Arts Council takes shape.

The best and worst of everything in 2009

Not going to join the cavalcades of "best of" and "top ten" or "worst of" lists for 2009.

I'm going to steal from others.

Best politically-themed list from a prog-blogger is "The 50 Assclowns of 2009" at http://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/2009/12/assclowns-of-week-year-79-top-50.html. Guess who's number one? Hint: He started his long political journey in Wyoming.

In a rare bone thrown to conservatives, here is the list of the worst liberals of 2009 according to the stonecipher report blog (penned by two liberal radio personalities in Chicago): http://stonecipher.typepad.com/the_stonecipher_report/2009/12/stoneciphers-top-ten-worst-democrats-the-grudge-list.html?asset_id=6a00e552629a7888330128765ad625970c.

Roger Ebert rates the top ten films in mainstream and indie categories at http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/12/the_best_films_of_2009.html

This is a great one: Jenny Shank at New West has a list of funniest passages from 2009 books. Go to http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/funny_lines_from_2009_books/C39/L39/

Top ten 2009 Wyoming stories can be found at http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/articles/2009/12/24/news/today/news04.txt. Not making the list is last summer's cross-border incursion by Colorado liberals and the outing of former state rep Dick Cheney. Surprised?

Best quotes of 2009? Thought you'd never ask. Yale University Librarian Fred Shapiro compiled a cool year-end list that includes a teabagger, Sarah Palin and an actual real hero. Go to http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/742831--best-quotes-of-2009.

Finally, Brit psychic Craig Hamilton-Parker makes his predictions for 2010. Among other things, quantum physicists will find a way to make energy from water and a celebrity will be cloned. Read the rest at http://www.psychics.co.uk/prediction/predictionsfor2010.html

Nothing new about religion in movies

Our local paper, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, featured an article by Robert W. Butler of McLatchy about the prevalance of religion (even "spirituality") in current Hollywood movies.

He went on to list these films: The Road, Avatar, The Blind Side, and The Invention of Lying. Because the photo accompanying the article comes from The Lovely Bones, one assumes that its imminent Christmas release is what prompted the article.

Baby Boomer Flashback...

I grew up with religious movies: Ben Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Robe, Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah. Biblical epics. All of them were based (sometimes loosely) on stories from the Bible. My parents considered it their duty to take us to these films. I am certain that they all had the imprimatur of the Catholic Legion of Decency. There were other films that did not, films that exhibited entirely too much female pulchritude (Marilyn!), explored teen angst (James Dean!), displayed the singer with the swiveling hips (Elvis!) and featured entirely too much violence. Then there were those rotten comic books and racy novels. Entirely too much indecency existed in the fifties. Nothing that a dose of an overlong Biblical epic couldn't cure.

If they seemed cheesy back then, their cheesiness has multiplied with time. The only one of the epics that isn't terrible is Ben Hur. Is saw it recently and the story is pretty good. The chariot race is still thrilling. Even though we remember Charlton Heston more for his NRA lunacy rather than his acting, he's not bad in this one.

There was another batch of movies in the late sixties that tackled religion. Lilies of the Field even took its title from the Bible. Sidney Poitier was the African-American handyman for a convent of traditionalist Catholic nuns. He was old-time religion and they were Papists. Everyone learned something about tolerance and human rights. The nuns at my high school took us to see this one.

...End of Flashback

Religion in movies is nothing new. Spirituality is another matter. Hollywood no longer is restricted to the Bible for its religious-themed movies. Organized religion's endemic intolerance (we have the answer and you don't) takes a shellacking in most recent movies. Doubt is a great example. It's also a good example of life's complications. Kevin Smith's Dogma took on religion in a big way. The image that remains with me is the smiling "Buddy Christ" promoted by Cardinal George Carlin.

Butler's McLatchy article named only one recent film -- The Blind Side -- that actually portrays devout Christians acting on their faith. The others are all metaphor and allegory usually helped along with a dose of sci-fi and/or fantasy. As are so many films that take on good vs. evil. I haven't seen the film version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But I've seen No Country for Old Men twice. Tommy Lee Jones' world-weary sheriff is perplexed by the scope of death and destruction that's been unleashed on his county. He can find no redeeming characters anywhere. He asks that eternal question: "Where is God?" And he has no answer.

Avatar is more Celtic mythology and Gaian philosophy than religion. The planet Pandora is a living thing. Earthers attempt to rape and pillage Pandora and she responds. It's an old scenario. Natives are outgunned and outnumbered. The call goes out to Mother Earth and she sounds the trumpet. The animals charge the automatic weapons and battle cruisers and emerge triumphant.

It rarely works that way in the real world. Maybe that's why we like the myth. The underdog wins due to its earth-centered spirituality. And some bitchin' flying dragons.

Michael and me: Angry White Men