Saturday
A weather shift is underway and announcing itself by gusts of wind that are strong enough to rock the house ever so slightly. The time is not long after midnight, and I have the sounds of that wind to listen to all by myself. Robin and the cats are all fast asleep. It’s just yours truly listening to some fast-moving air. It’s a grand feeling to be in a place where the wind can blow all it wants out there, as long as I am in here where it is warm.
Snow is expected later today, quite a pile of it above 7000 feet, but we will likely have rain here in Paradise. Robin and I took advantage of the dry days last week and went for a hike on the Uncompahgre Plateau. We walked down an old dirt track past an abandoned cow camp, where the bunkhouse still stands as well as a shed where cut wood was stored.
There was an ancient gate at that shed which was closed through an ingenious use of what was available to these isolated cowhands. An old horseshoe fastened to a length of chain. The shoe would be looped over one of the gate poles to hold it closed.
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Robin and I went to a movie matinee on Saturday last, where we watched what we think is the worst film we’ve ever seen. It’s called Halloween Ends. It’s no more than a confused mishmash of a gross-out/slasher. Save your money.
Here’s a part of Richard Roeper’s review.
Despite the iconic presence of Final Grandmother Jamie Lee Curtis and a few attempts to frame the saga of Michael Myers into some sort of big-picture analysis about society’s need for a villain and the tendency of some to blame the victims for crimes, this is a cheap-looking slashfest that asks returning characters to behave in ways that make no sense, while adding the usual array of obnoxious nitwits who exist only to annoy us before they’re sliced and diced like entrées at Benihana.
Richard Roeper: Halloween Ends
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From The New Yorker
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[Intercepted email found during ongoing FBI search for Jimmie Hoffa’s body]
To: God
From: Jon
Dear God,
I think that I am finally ready for adolescence now, if you’d care to send it along and give me a second chance. I would understand if you don’t because I pretty well muffed it the first time, but hey … which of us got an “A” in that course?
I was not able to handle the inflammatory combination of: growing several inches in two weeks, a brand new voice entirely, a penis which became erect whenever it felt like it (as when giving book reports in front of class), and an interest in the female gender that drowned out nearly every other sort of intellectual curiosity. I think that at long last I’ve rounded up enough wisdom and common sense to weather those storms.
Now I know that there are countless examples of elders of our tribe who seem to be repeating parts of their adolescence, and ending up embarrassing themselves as a result because their hormones have derailed them, but I think you can count on me not to follow in their footsteps. I’m a Buddhist now, and if there is anything that Buddhists have lots of it is perspective. We simply reek of it.
So if it’s okay with you, I could use a couple of additional inches in height, I could deal with being a baritone at long last, and I don’t need the whole schmear but just the smallest boost in my testosterone level. That would be lovely.
No matter what you decide, I thank you in advance for your consideration.
Jon
P.S. If you could also stop the hair from growing out of my ears and nose, I’d appreciate that as well
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From The New Yorker
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I would like to offer a correction to something President Biden said this summer, when he called out the MAGA crowd as “semi-fascists.” Seems to me that being semi-fascist is a little like being semi-pregnant. A difficult feat in either case.
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This song is for my children. Listening is mandatory for them. The rest of you can skip it without penalty.
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Robin and I had some business to attend to in Aspen on Monday morning, so we drove most of the way the night before and caught a motel in Glenwood Springs for the evening. The trip was a refreshment course in winter driving, with either snow, hail, fog, or rain to deal with along the entire route.
It was our first snow of the year. Big flakes coming at you by the zillions.
I was reminded of times sitting in the back seat of a ’42 Pontiac and watching the snow in the headlights as my father would drive us back home from visits to relatives in the rural.
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Seeing those ghostly flakes enter the lightbeam and then sweep left, right, and overhead as they were pushed aside by the cushion of air that the car created was hypnotic to a backseat kid. Still is.
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Periodically I will have a Warren Zevon moment, even though he passed away in 2003, having been carried off the planet by a cancer in his lungs, mesothelioma. I was having one of those moments this morning, and went looking for a song from his last album, The Wind. It’s a beautiful song and many excellent covers exist, but I was attracted by this one today, performed by the group Trampled By Turtles.
Here is their official video of the tune, perhaps the simplest music video I’ve ever seen.
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Little Home In The Valley 