Misty morning

 

Film review: Pather Panchali (1955)

There was a major gap in my filmmaker's pantheon in that I had not heretofore seen anything by Satyajit Ray.  So, in one of the periodic 50% off sales that Criterion has, I bought the "Apu Trilogy" (not about the now discontinued Kwik-E-Mart clerk, although he was almost certainly named after this character).  Well, after watching the first one, it might take a lot for me (and it is me, because Jami bailed halfway through) to watch the other two.  I just read that one of the inspirations that led Ray to make his own films was seeing Bicycle Thieves, and coincidentally, that's the film I thought of while watching this (particularly the final act).  It's definitely a "slice of life" film, with little to tie each incident together other than the family to whom the incidents happen.  And it's also ravishingly filmed in black and white, and the center of the movie is a ridiculously telegenic small boy with huge expressive eyes.  Anyway, it suckers you in with the minutiae of events in a small Indian village (in Bengal, apparently) before [spoiler] hitting you in the face with tragedy.  The main characters are a family: a harassed mother who has to make do with very little, 

a somewhat feckless dreamer of a father, educated far beyond his rank in life, who refuses to push for money that is owed him, who dreams of making money from his writing but has to scrape a living with his learning by traveling here and there, leaving the rest of the family for months on end.  And the children: a daughter Durga (or Didi), who appears to be about 11 or 12, 

and Apu, who is about half her height and skinny, 

and who tags after her and drives her crazy.  They live in a crumbling ruin that is supposedly the father's ancestral home, but that he can never afford to repair, and the mother feels ostracized and belittled by the more well-heeled other village mothers.  And then there's "Auntie," a ridiculously superannuated, practically toothless older woman 

who periodically comes to stay until the mother can stand her no longer, at which point she toddles off to find some other relative to sponge off.  Despite her destitution, she is remarkably cheerful (and we note that all relatives take her in when she shows up, despite having very little to spare) and a source of humor in the film.  And the film is definitely not dour, and the extreme poverty on display is neither romanticized nor played as poverty-porn, but just portrayed dispassionately.  As a result, differs from Bicycle Thieves in that there's not a feeling of dread hanging over the events.  Which makes the eventual tragedy all-the-more painful.  However, the memories I will take away from it are lyrical shots of lush pastoral scenes (including one scene by a river in torrential rain in particular) rather than any feeling of squalor.  I see what the fuss is about.  One of those films that nourishes long after it's over even if you might have been distracted in the early going.

My retina is NOT detaching, apparently

A couple of days ago I suddenly started seeing flashing lights in my peripheral vision, followed by what appeared to be a sudden oilspill on my eyeball - a long, very black, snakey kind of thing. This caused major alarm bells to ring because I knew (having been told by various opticians over the years) that this was the sign of a retina detaching. Fortunately (?) it was about 4:45, so I could still call my eye person. They referred me to a retina expert who booked me an appointment at noon the next day (i.e. Friday). Of course, this required my pupils being dilated, so after being reassured that it wasn't my retina, it was just the vitreous jelly detaching from the back of the eye (oh, is that all) which is a "perfectly normal part of the aging process" I was essentially confined to the indoors for the rest of the day (after a rather hair-raising drive home wearing the trendy eyewear you see below). However, this is a high risk time for retina detaching, so I'm going to have a couple of follow-up appointments in a month and then another month. Ah, the joys of getting older.

Well, shit

 I have had a sick feeling in my stomach every time Frederick and I have driven out to the surrounding countryside for walks, because of the teeming profusion of Trump signs.  It was all very reminiscent of 2016, and, as it turns out, even worse.  For the good of my sanity I haven't been reading or watching the news, or even listening to public radio (except the classical music channel, and even then I have to be careful because they have a morning news show and news bulletins on the hour most hours), and thus was able to avoid what happened in 2016, which was that I was kept awake the entire night sick with dread.  (Although, as we shall see...)  Instead, Jami and I (re-)watched The 39 Steps and marveled at the film-star magnetism of Robert Donat (and John Lurie and a young Peggy Ashcroft as the crofters) and retired to bed early.  Somehow I had managed to get wind of a woman pollster who was predicting that Kamala would win Iowa (the woman was a local pollster), which would have been amazing, had it been remotely true, but nonetheless I refused to raise my hopes, rightly as it turned out.  In fact, a couple of weeks ago I had decided that Trump was going to win and sort of plotted out a reaction to that with which I could be comfortable.  Basically, except for the third of the country that would forgive him if he ate their babies in front of them (in fact, be honored, and offer him ketchup, the only condiment he likes), he's been elected because of dissatisfaction with high prices.  I'll be interested to see how his only real agenda of massive tax cuts for the rich and (if he's really serious - I suspect him of not actually giving a shit about any policies except those involving nobbling the various investigations against him and pardoning himself) the tariffs that he patently does not understand will help with that.  Whatever: those who voted for him can fry in oil for all I care.  To quote the subReddit: Leopards will eat their faces very soon.  Sadly they will also eat the faces of poor asylum-seekers who have already been through hell, but as the man said, the cruelty is the point.

Anyway, to add shit on top of shit, Frederick's sleeplessness, which we had dared hope fixed (despite it being a regular roughly-monthly cycle for years) recurred, after almost two months of reprieve, with a vengeance.  Up and pacing his room at 3 AM.  It's as if he was affected at the very moment Trump crossed the winning line.  And his condition has only worsened since.

So, what to do, when you hate half of the people around you (more if one ever ventures outside of Flint)?  Turn to books!  I quit Twitter when Musk bought it and have not missed it one jot, so let's see how much more of the internet I can painlessly amputate.  Currently immersed in Michael Palin's first volume of diaries ("1969-79 The Python Years" - fascinating not just for Python inside dirt (Idle and Cleese don't come off too well, and Chapman rather a sad case) but for memories of Britain in the 70s.  Palin seems ridiculously prolific and how he remained slim and trim with his obvious relish for eating out and drinking well is a mystery.  Ah, the days before everybody's gut biome was ruined, I suppose.  It's actually a good perspective, as you see depressing Tory gains at the beginning and end of the 70s, bookending Wilson and Callahan, but no backsliding from the repeal of hanging that (I didn't realized) was still new at the end of the 60s.

Anyway, it'll be good for Philosophy.  Students seem to be drawn to it.  I'm reminded of the quote from one of Marge's sisters, explaining why she is so comfortably off - "I invested in mace before society crumbled" - substitute Philosophy for mace, as people do tend to get philosophical when the abyss yawns before them.

No photos (I'm not taking photos of any of those Fucking Trump/Vance signs) so I'll just add some of the newly-bulldozed old Farmer's Market building.  Rather a nice venue that, in typical Flint fashion, was going to be taken over by some children's concern but they were scared off because a Marijuana dispensary had just bought the old bank branch right next door, so now it joins the long list of buildings that have vanished since we arrived in Flint.  Seems to capture the current mood nicely.

"Whump"s in the night

 We were awokened at just after 3 AM by a loud thump, as of an explosion.  As we looked around groggily, I noticed a smell of burning.  Jami had me run downstairs and check, but the smell was just in our room and she called me back because she was looking out of our window at the Dollar General parking lot and saw the source:

Here's all that was left by about 8:30 AM:

Note conspicuously unused fire extinguisher...

Atlas Park, high 50s, first day after time change

This lasted about 20 minutes

 

SWARMS of trick-or-treaters.  Good sign?

The heat continues

 At this point I can't enjoy it, mainly because I can't enjoy anything with the election hanging over us.  The suspicion is that the gates of hell have opened.  But at least the colors are nice.