I think that I might have already read about thirty short blurbs about the new Bob Dylan biopic, and I’ve done that without even trying. The hoopla machine must be starting to smoke from overuse by now, and perhaps it needs to be shut down and given a bit of preventive maintenance.
So I am totally tenderized and ready to watch it should it come within range, which means if it comes to Grand Junction. (By the way, if you were wondering about the origin of that town’s name, wonder no longer. It sits at the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers, and the Colorado was once named the Grand River.)
Why would I go to see such a movie when I already know all the songs and much of how his life has unfolded? Well, that’s a fair question.
Perhaps because we are both Minnesota boys of about the same age. Or that the lyrics to some of his songs have spoken truth to me since I was a lad. Or that it’s nearly January and some mid-winter boredom is setting in. Or that I suspect that much of what I think that I know about Mr. Dylan’s life story is wrong, and perhaps I’ll learn something new .
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A dense fog rolled in yesterday afternoon and is still hanging ’round. Visibility is less than half a city block. Travel in our part of the world is moving at a sensible speed as a result. Unusual, a fog like this here in Paradise.
Quite unlike on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, where I lived for several years. The Keweenaw was a finger of land about 15 miles wide and 40 miles long that stuck out into Lake Superior. When you are nearly surrounded by one of the largest lakes in the world, fogs are a regular part of life.
FOG
(by Carl Sandburg)
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Unlike Carl Sandburg’s fogs rolling in on little cat’s feet, the Lake Superior version would materialize around you. One minute visibility would be unlimited and the next you couldn’t see to tie your shoelace.
One fall evening I had traveled to a small-town hospital fifteen miles north of where I lived to consult on an infant. There were clear daytime skies on the ride up, but darkness and dense fog when I stepped out the hospital door two hours later.
To make things even more uncomfortable on that return trip, I was driving a small motorcycle, a Kawasaki KZ 400, to be precise.
Tooling along at 10-15 mph I wasn’t much worried about hitting something in front of me. No, it was someone in a car or truck smacking into me from behind that was the main concern. I’ve never felt more vulnerable when motoring than I did that night, because I knew that the taillight on that bike was too small to be much help in the fog.
So in this grand mist this morning? I’m not going anywhere at all. The poet’s cat will need to get off its haunches and pad out of town before I even start the car.
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I’ll go no further without sharing an image of my first motorcycle love, the Kawasaki machine mentioned above. there were bigger and faster bikes to come later, but none did more to free me from the four-wheeled cage that is a car than this one. You don’t forget your first time.
Risk-averse people used to ask me why I would ever ride a motorcycle. What could I possibly get out of it that was worth the hazard? I would answer: “You remember when you were a kid on your bicycle and you were riding down a long hill? How much fun that was?” They would always nod in assent. “Well, on my cycle I get that same feeling going uphill.“
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There is an interesting article in Saturday’s NYTimes about saunas and sauna culture. It takes the form of a 750 mile road trip from Grand Marais MN to Copper Harbor MI, sampling some of the luxury offerings that tourists might enjoy, or at lease pretend to love. Some of you might question the sanity of sitting in a 200 degree sweat-room and then leaping into Lake Superior in the winter then back to the steam room and back to the lake … you get the picture. But there are those that give this exercise in the treatment of one’s body (that would likely violate the terms of the Geneva Convention) credit for their health and peace of mind.
What is missing from the article are the thousands of residents of this same area who quietly install small personal saunas on their property for much less than the $50,000 units that are discussed. Ordinary folk who just want to percolate themselves whenever they feel the need, and do so without spending a small fortune.
My first sauna experience was at the home of a friend of mine in high school. Mike’s parents were artists and their home couldn’t have been more different from that of my family of origin. His mother taught modern dance in the Twin Cities and his father was a sculptor and painter.
On learning that I’d never sauna-ed, Mike invited me for an evening when his parents happened to be throwing a party. Most of the other attendees were middle-aged inhabitants of a world unknown to me, but I knew I was not in Kansas any more when a slightly portly Lonnie (Mike’s father) walked through the crowd carrying a tray of hors d’ouevres and wearing nothing at all. Although I was slightly hungry, I declined to take a canapé, being unsure of the hygienics of the situation.
Mike then took me out back to the sauna, showed me where to leave my clothes, and I undressed and entered the steamy wood-scented room, where others had already gathered. Not accustomed to being in a completely nude environment with both men and women present, I found a piece of bench as far from the light as I could get. Although I was a curious 15 year-old, and would really have liked to look more carefully at the first nude adult females I had ever been that close to, I neither wanted to be seen or to be seen see-ing, so I hunkered over and stared at the wooden floor.
After what seemed to be an acceptable period of discomfort, I rose and left the room to find my clothing and resume normal existence. All in all, when looking back, I wish I had done things differently. Today I would take one of those canapés and think nothing of it.
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Saturday evening: Just left the theater after viewing “A Complete Unknown.” The film rocked us both. Not a single disappointment and nothing but respect for the actors playing people that many of us grew up listening to and watching from a distance.
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Little Home In The Valley 