General Musings

I don't like working on my birthday. I'd rather spend the time with Ace. But we're leaving for San Diego tomorrow and I need to conserve my vacation days this year. I'm not even taking off next Monday, which I originally scheduled, because I'm still debating a last-minute trip to my high school reunion back east. The idea of a whirlwind weekend to New York State is not nearly as appealing as a 10 day visit, but I can't be back east for that long right now.

The heat makes riding unappealing. Not so much the riding as the tacking up. I was sick to my stomach after tacking Ace up for an 8:30 lesson on Saturday morning and just didn't have much energy for anything except suppling him for his lesson with Ashley after mine. It worked out alright, but I hate that feeling. When it was 110 at 4:00 yesterday, I canceled my 5:15 lesson. We're supposed to do a lesson at 8:15 tomorrow morning, so I hope it is at least tolerable then.

San Diego is always a great city to visit, but especially so when the temperatures are supposed to be 25 or more degrees cooler than Los Angeles in the summer. A couple of years ago while we were at Comicon, it was 119 degrees at Pierce and there was a horse show going on. They were really lucky that they could use the covered arena, because they had to pretty much cancel the rest of the events that couldn't take place in that shade. I was happy not to be around for it.

I'm looking forward to meeting Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley at the Human Target panel on Saturday. The Human Target is another one of Len's off-spring and it will be a mid-season entry on Fox. We enjoyed the pilot, and the changes from the original material seem to work. Rick Springfield starred in an 8-episode version of it that ran not quite 20 years ago. Can a revived Swamp Thing be far behind?

We're also planning to go to The Big Bang Theory panel on Friday, but not if I have to stand in line. Which is why it is nice to know the show runners. I'm waiting for e-mail from one of them telling us how to by-pass the crowds. Sometimes it is a really good thing to be married to a comic book god. I was sorry that TBBT didn't get nominated for an Emmy, but Jim Parsons richly deserves his nomination for playing the wonderfully quirky Sheldon and I hope he wins.

During the day, except for those times when Len is on a panel, I'm free to wander about greater San Diego. I like to avoid the crush of 150,000 comic book fans all crammed into the convention center. I usually will only do the main floor at the Wednesday evening preview, but I actually prefer it when someone slips us exhibitor passes and we can get in before the preview crowd. That's what we did last year. Because Len was an honored guest last year, I spent a lot more time at the convention than I usually do--he was on a lot more panels. Plus my friends Melinda Snodgrass and Connie Willis were at the convention and on panels and I wanted to support them as well. This year is a lot easier for me to be selfish.

A couple of years ago, when the convention coincided with my birthday, I brought my riding gear along and found a rental stable where I went out with a private tour guide for a couple of hours and we walked and trotted on several thousand acres, including a wildlife preserve, east of San Diego proper. I had a great time, my guide was a very entertaining 15 year old, but the heat was as bad as it was in L.A. I did enjoy riding the dun quarter horse, even when he did a 180 underneath me because a bicycle came zipping up behind us. Luckily, I was relaxed and well stuck to the saddle. Love those well-seasoned trail horses.

We're going to look at a house right after I'm done with work today, before Len takes me out to dinner. We may look at more than one house, because I saw a photograph of a spectacular place in one of the neighborhoods I keep checking out and it's within our feasible range. It wasn't quite where I was looking, but the inside and the patio is definitely worth the consideration. The sink even looks out a window, which is something I really like. What we definitely need is more space, and a chunk of that space needs to be open because we love to give parties.

So, for my birthday, the spousal unit gave me an iPod, which I got to take the place of my Palm Tungsten 5, which gave up its ghost right after I got my netbook last month. I managed to get the Palm information into the netbook before the Palm went to Jesus, but now I'm trying to figure out how to migrate the data to the Mac's address book to sync with the Palm. The netbook is great, and I'm taking that to San Diego rather than a full-sized notebook, but I still don't want to be carrying it around with me all day. I've only had the iPod since Saturday, but I am deeply in love with it. I bought some music, but more importantly, I bought a bunch of reference apps, a couple of trivia games, and even a version of Jeopardy to keep me amused during the trip to San Diego (Len is a lousy passenger, so I am perfectly resigned to letting him do the driving while I nap or do other things.) Tonight, I need to add some pictures of Ace to it, because people always ask about him.

Some of my friends contributed to the restoration of my Hugh Jackman and Viggo Mortensen collections by getting me Blu-ray disks of Hidalgo and Appaloosa and a DVD of Oklahoma. Rounding out the horse theme, I was given a replacement in Blu-ray of Seabiscuit. I can't wait to watch them when we get back.

When Len goes to Toronto in August, I'm going to invite the ladies over so we can watch Viggo in Alatriste, which has not been released in English. I got the Spanish release with subtitles. I've read most of the Perez-Reverte novels about Captain Alatriste (I had them all in hard back, until the fire) so I was disappointed when the film never opened here. I'm always up for a good swashbuckler and Viggo does know how to use a sword.

A Toast to Bottle Shock

I actually went to the movies today and it wasn't for a tent-pole blockbuster. And Len went along.

We saw Bottle Shock, based on the true story about how the California vineyards blew away the competition in a blind taste-test against French wine in 1976. Alan Rickman is, as always, wonderful. The film has a nice little score, plus a good selection of 1970s music. There are beautiful shots of Napa at sunset. The actor who gets to play young Captain Kirk plays Bill Pullman's son in the film. We really enjoyed it, although it did bother me to see the ways the wine bottles were handled after one of the characters actually says something about how they needed to be transported carefully.

The trailer for Viggo Mortensen's next film, Appaloosa, ran before the film. It's the first trailer I've seen for it. I think it opens in October. There was a big article about the The Road, the other Viggo film schedule for the fall, in today's L.A. Times. That one's going to be a whole lot harder to watch, I think. It appears to be covering some of the same issues as Kevin Costner's The Postman, without the upbeat ending. I've heard the young actor in it is amazing.

Expanding the Franchise, Hobbit Style

Guillermo del Toro is off to New Zealand for the next four years to direct "The Hobbit" and what I've read is either "a sequel to The Hobbit" or "a prequel to The Hobbit." I had hoped to get Guillermo, who is a fan and acquaintance of Len, as one of our "Creative Voices" for the series here at Pierce, since he lives not far away. I guess that isn't happening any time soon.

While I really hoped that Peter Jackson would direct, Guillermo is a good choice and Peter Jackson will produce. Weta is, I presume, doing all the special effects and props.

There's an awful lot of material which could constitute a prequel to The Hobbit, but they've already done a sequel, and it is called "The Lord of the Rings." When I first heard about two films being made, my reaction was "what do you do to fill up the time?" It is a short book and aimed at a very different audience than The Lord of the Rings. The stage play only takes two hours. I know. I've seen it twice. My sister starred in it when she was in high school. She made a fine Bilbo Baggins. (I also caught a children's theatre production of it in Washington, D.C. when my son was little.)

I really started thinking about what might make a movie betwixt The Hobbit and LOTR when I read Heidi MacDonald's report about Guillermo on The Beat and I suddenly had a flash of inspiration: there's the untold story about what Aragorn is up to as a ranger between the time of the Hobbit (when he probably met Bilbo at Elrond's; it's quite clear in the book of the Fellowship of the Ring that they are old friends) and LOTR, such as riding to war with Eowyn's grandfather (referenced in the extended Two Towers), looking for Gollum (in the book of Fellowship of the Ring) and protecting the border with other rangers. Clearly, Legolas and Aragorn have some history (based on the exchanges of the council of Elrond--Legolas might even have been at home when Bilbo visited the Woodland Elves) and somewhere along the way Aragorn and Arwen fell in love and had to deal with her father's disapproval.

That's it! An Aragorn film. I'm there. And so are a lot of my fellow female aging boomers who get the vapors over Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn.

Viggo Neeperie

Thursday night I attended a meeting of the camera club for which I've been asked to judge pictures next month. One of the technically best photographs submitted was of Viggo Mortensen on location for The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. Cormac McCarthy also wrote All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men. He's a very hot novelist in Hollywood these days.

The competition theme was "low key" and the photograph was definitely that, the figure of Viggo and the child playing his son emerged from a dark background in very beautiful, warm, low, directional light. The shot was taken somewhere in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, which I know only because someone (not the photographer, who was not present) volunteered the information. I am curious as to whether the photographer is a member of IATSE Local 600 or was some other crew member with an illegal camera on the set (only Local 600 members--of which I am one--are supposed to shoot stills.)

It was a really nice photograph, but Viggo looks like he's channeling Steve Railsback as Charlie Manson in this role. He's got a skraggly dark beard and what may be long, Aragorn-type hair (he had a hat or hood on), but his great bone structure looked more prominent than usual. I know roughly what the story is about, so he's probably lost weight to get the right look of deprivation. It's just disconcerting to see him look so much like Steve, a terrific actor who is an acquaintance of ours. (I was totally chilled by Steve's performance in 1976 television movie Helter Skelter, made long before I met him. The performance stands the test of time and, although good, the actor in the remake didn't make my hair stand on end. Steve is also very good in the very strange film, The Stuntman.)

I'm still debating whether I'll go to see The Road. If I do, it's only because Viggo's in it. I got through both A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, but I did cover my eyes a lot. Otherwise, The Road is the kind of story I don't really want to see if I'm looking for "entertainment" (I've heard the ending.) But based on that photograph, it will be hauntingly beautiful.

Celebrity Horses at Equine Affaire

I felt like I had a whirlwind visit to Equine Affaire in Pomona, California on Saturday. Usually, I go to do some shopping along with watching some of the clinicians. My time was really limited this year because I could only go one day and I had to get home in time to take care of the Arab prince and change to go to a concert.

But once I saw the schedule, I knew I couldn't leave the fairgrounds before 4 P.M., giving me the opportunity to see presentations of two of the "Celebrity Horses" present at the event. If they had celebrity horses in past years, I must have missed the notice. Or maybe they weren't from a couple of my favorite horse movies.

The notice that clearly caught my attention was that one of the horses who portrayed Shadowfax in the Lord of the Rings would be in attendance. I'm still not sure how he came to be owned by someone in the States when the LotR:TRotK extras video indicated that Blanco was in happy retirement in New Zealand, but there he was.

I decided against carrying my digital SLR because of the weight, but I almost always have my point and shoot Nikon S1 in my bag and that camera is not so good for shooting still photographs, but it isn't bad as a little video camera. So the first video above of the gray horse is Blanco as he's led back in to the exhibit hall to show off some of his tricks. He's a well-trained liberty horse, as the LotR video showed, and a really sweet Andalusian.

The second video, of the black horse, is TC Bey Cedar, the stallion who portrayed Al Hattal in Hidalgo. He's a stunning Arabian, a son of the famous Bey Shah, black except for a coronet ring of white on his back left foot. He's tall for an Arabian at 15-3, which, with his lovely personality, is how he got the gig for the film. He's got a gorgeous head, which I don't think you really see in the film (I watched it again on Saturday night) because it is somewhat obscured by his tack.

Both Blanco and TC Bey Cedar demonstrated rearing on cue. A way to teach this move was demonstrated by the trick training clinician. I'm not so sure it's a great idea to teach this trick to the average horse and TC Bey Cedar's trainer kept saying to people it is a trick best left to professionals. Rearing is somewhat less controlled than the airs above the ground moves of classical training. Personally, I'm happier when Ace keeps all four of his feet closer to the ground. I'm not even thrilled when he decides to do "the flamingo" where he bends one of his front legs and holds it up for quite a while when I'm sitting on his back. I usually wonder what it is he's trying to tell me is bothering him.

I must say I was disappointed I didn't run into Viggo Mortensen. It would have been cool if he dropped by to visit two of his equine co-stars. Cooler yet (well, nothing would be quite as cool as running into Viggo, I suppose) would be an appearance by T.J., the paint that played Hidalgo and whom Viggo now owns and keeps somewhere in nearby Topanga.

The other neat thing about this year's Equine Affaire was that the horse on exhibit at the Region 2 Arabian Horse Association booth turned out to be a close blood relation to my boy. I noticed the animal's name (I think it was All Flame) and immediately thought, hmm, sounds like it could be. Then I saw the pedigree--a Bask Flame son. Bask Flame is Ace's maternal grandfather. So the chestnut horse on display was Rocky's (Ace's dam, Flames Sirocco) half-brother (technically, a half-sib in the horse world comes from the same mother with a different sire, and different mothers mean a designation of "same sire," but I'm a human) and Ace's half-uncle and they did bear a familial resemblance. Ace has more chrome (white markings.) I did wonder whether Cody had inherited the hot Bask Flame personality that Rocky got or whether his dam had cooled him down. Since Cody's owned by a 12 year old girl, I'm guessing the latter. Cody's actually a few years younger than Ace.

I didn't do any shopping worth mentioning, unlike the years when I've come home with new riding pants or helmets or DVDs. I spent $5, on a 2007 Breyer Christmas ornament to give to a friend. Cheap date.

Clydesdale Wins Super Bowl!

A young Clydesdale named Hank and his Dalmatian buddy were the clear winners in the Super Bowl commercial competition yesterday. Check out the link to the ad here. If it doesn't bring tears to your eyes, you have no heart. What could be better than good horses and good dogs working together. It's better than the one with the little donkey who dreamed of being part of the team and the one with the Dalmatian who had a different kind of adoption. We were up close and personal with members of one team of Budweiser Clydesdales after they appeared at the L.A. Equestrian Center in January. They are such gentle giants.

George R.R. Martin and Viggo Mortensen have something in common today: they are among the overjoyed New York Giants fans in the world. That rattling sound is my father doing a happy dance in his grave. I didn't realize it growing up, but Dad was a huge football fan, somewhat subdued in a family of baseball fans. I knew he played in high school and dislocated his shoulder doing it, but it must have been a conversation we had after I got married that let me know how much he loved the Giants.

We had a small group of friends over to watch the game yesterday, a party Len holds in honor of his father. Unless the Browns are playing an easily available game, I don't watch football at all and Len watches even less. He's limited to the Super Bowl, which he used to watch with his Dad.

Until my freelancing brought me to the Washington Post and into contact with colleagues who were avid football fans, I would never even notice the football season. Then I learned that there were such things as post-season and Super Bowl parties when I got sent off to cover them for the paper. I liked those best when they were Food Section assignments because the pictures were better than when you tried to get a dozen people and the TV with a picture into a photo. This was in the days when it was unusual to see a color photograph in the daily paper.

Several times, the Post sent me out on Super Bowl Sunday to see what people were doing besides watching the game. The answer is pretty much nothing. Particularly when the Redskins were in the game. I remember photographing a deserted mall in Georgetown when one person was on the escalator. Then there were the 3 people at the big movie theatre near Adams-Morgan going to see a blockbuster film.

I started following the Cleveland Browns near the end of my time in D.C. A friend hauled me off to photograph a Browns game one cold December when I went to Cleveland for the weekend. They made it into the playoffs that year, so I watched. When I got to Cleveland to attend law school, there was no question--everyone followed the Browns games. With a lot of fellow students from Pittsburgh, I learned a lot about city spirit.

For a number of years after I moved to L.A. (a city without professional football) and married Len, my girlfriends and I would make of point of going antiquing on Super Bowl Sunday. It was great. Not much traffic. When I got home, I'd watch whatever was left of the game and we'd fast-forward through a video-tape to watch the commercials (often the best part of the game.)

Since I own a horse, antiquing is largely a thing of the past. Now I'm the person in the kitchen making the Super Bowl snacks. I made pots of vegetarian chili and turkey chili last night and we had the usual nachos, potato chips, guacamole, cheese, soft drinks (no one drinks beer in my house), and friends brought pizza and cake. Everyone was satisfied and I've got leftovers for the freezer (a start on the food I will need if there's an Oscars(R) ceremony--if the WGA has a new contract.)

My most ambitious Super Bowl meal was the night I did a fondue party. That was more work than I ever need to do again. Besides, it's hard to watch the game if you're going back and forth to the table for melted cheese or chocolate.

Oscar(R) Snores

The Oscar(R) nominations were announced on Tuesday morning and for the first time that I can remember, we did not set the TV to go off to watch at 5:30. Perhaps it is the WGA strike which made them slip under my radar or maybe the fact that I could go to a website and download the information at a civilized hour (as Len did) or maybe because it was the first time since New Year's Day that I didn't have to get up early enough to drive Michael to his job before I was due at work. In any case, Len and I didn't talk about the nominations until last night and he said he's not that excited about the nominees.

This may be due to the fact that we've seen so few of them. With a day job and responsibility for Ace, I just don't have the time to go see movies like I used to. We managed to catch a few during the screening season and we've gotten something like 15 screeners to watch at home, so there is hope. But I just can't get excited about some of the films. I hear Atonement is as endless as The English Patient, three hours of my life I will never get back. We missed the opportunity to see No Country for Old Men with the Coen Brothers, but we do have the screener; unfortunately, I hear it is quite violent. That makes it easier to watch on a small screen than a big screen, as far as I'm concerned.

We did love Juno, starring Kitty Pride and C.J. Craig. Aragorn was great in Eastern Promises, but the odds of him actually winning the statue are pretty small since Daniel Day Lewis seems to be favored. I'll be rooting for Viggo anyway, who should also have been nominated for A History of Violence.

Enchanted, which had Cyclops in a major role, has half of the nominations for original song. We managed to catch the film on Monday (because I had the day off and it was raining) and we absolutely loved it, even if I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for my sister in the crowd scenes. My friend Melinda called Enchanted "Galaxy Quest for Disney geeks" and I think that sums it up nicely. Len and I laughed until we cried. I will say the rats and roaches in the kitchen were really creepy to me, much like the scene where the rats escape the house in Ratatouille (also up for multiple Oscars(R).) One rat in the kitchen, o.k. Hundreds? No thanks!

Eventually, I expect I will see the entire nomination list and make my picks. We usually have a party to watch the Oscars(R), but, unless the strike ends, what kind of a party will that be? Maybe we'll get to do a black-tie picket line instead. I think we should gather to watch the SAG Awards, which may be the only show with actors we can count on this year.

Did the DGA Screw the Writers--Again?

The WGA has jettisoned its demands on behalf of animation and reality writers at the "informal talks" with the AMPTP which started this week. That sucks. And so does the pressure mounting from people who think the DGA agreement is something the WGA should accept. This is without seeing the actual agreement.

I've got a really major complaint about that agreement based on the summaries I've seen: the DGA sold out for too little on the Internet by agreeing to flat rates and a window of opportunity for the studios to (a) take all the money that comes in during the first couple of weeks of Internet availability while (b) there is no guarantee that the material will actually remain available after that.

I'm sorry, but if the DGA wanted a guarantee of payment, it should have stuck to a demand that any flat fee be an advance against a residual percentage of money from Download One. That's basically how the publishing industry has worked for centuries (although the vertical integration of media has meant that there is an attempt to steal those royalties from writers.) And why won't the studios agree to a reasonable percentage-based residual like that? Because I am willing to bet they've seen the future killings they will get by limiting creators to flat fees and barring them from participating in any way in the most valuable period of availability--the first three weeks of release. As David Letterman says "the AMPTP: cowards, cutthroats and weasels." And as Viggo Mortensen puts it, " it would be noble and only fair if those corporate decision-makers in the entertainment industry who are spending considerable funds on their reasonably successful campaigns to put the Writers Guild in a bad light as party-poopers would spend that money on a fair contract and fair compensation to the writers..."

I wish the negotiators the best, but I hope to god they stay firm with a demand for a percentage of download that does not include a black-out for the writers and shows some semblance of making up for the fact that there will be fewer and fewer reruns on network TV in the future. No more rollbacks.

Two Kinds of Jeopardy!

Last night, we went to the Arc-light for a WGA screening of Eastern Promises, the fantastic thriller starring Viggo Mortensen. Writer Steven Knight was present for a Q&A, which was quite enlightening. Several members of the audience expressed a desire for a sequel but I would say please don't. There's really only two possible ways a sequel could end, and neither one of them would be happy. The story, acting, and directing was absolutely perfect and I don't need too much information; ambiguous is better. Despite the three incidents of graphic violence (which I could see coming and ducked for Len's arm-pit), one which included glimpses of Viggo's naughty bits (which I missed because of burying my head in Len's arm-pit), I whole-heartedly recommend this film.

When we got home, we turned to the Tivo-light recordings of Monday's Jeopardy! Len fast-forwarded through the contestant introductions and left the room. I looked up and thought, gee, that first contestant looks like someone at Gillian's party on Sunday. And, oh, she's got the same first name.

Then Len came back into the room and the woman answered a question and he said "gee, that looks like Lisa Klink." I said "that's what I thought." He said "wait just a minute" and backed up the recording to the beginning. Indeed, it was television writer Lisa Klink, who won on both Monday and Tuesday, despite missing the Final Jeopardy! question on Monday and at least one Double Jeopardy! question to which both I spent yelling at the TV the correct answers. Why is it that people never hear the answers when you shout them at the TV?

She shouldn't feel too bad. Len didn't know the answer to Final Jeopardy! was Katherine of Aragon either, which I recognized instantly. I always feel smug when none of the contestants gets Final Jeopardy! and I do.

I am still so annoyed that I didn't get on Jeopardy! after I made the call list two years ago because I had a friend working on Spider-man 3. I was happy that Becky had a job editing visual effects, but her tenuous connection to Sony disqualified me. Unfortunately, her job didn't end until my qualifying period was pretty much up. I'll have to test again when the opportunity arises.a

So I hope that Lisa continues her winning streak, which was probably shot months ago. Jeopardy! is one of the game shows which actually has WGA writers on it, so they probably aren't shooting right now.

Now That's Customer Service!

I've been trying to buy the "Impeach Remove Jail" t-shirt from Viggo Mortensen's Perceval Press for several months. Every time I try to place an order, they are out of stock. I'm not sure that's because of the sentiment or because of who's selling it, but either way it's a great slogan. So, on Thursday, I noticed the shirts were available again and I attempted to order one in long sleeves and one in the new pink color in short sleeves.

The site had several places where it warned customers to it the send button only once, lest they be charged for duplicate sales. Unfortunately, when I clicked the button, I got an error message. I tried fixing things twice more with the same results (insanity would be expecting a different result, I guess), so then I went in search of the information to contact the company to ask what was going on and make sure that six shirts weren't in the mail.

I can understand why it's a little hard to find an e-mail address to actually contact the company, but I finally managed to find it--no hot link there--and I sent off a short e-mail explaining the problem. Much to my amazement, used as I am to never hearing a response to queries I send to on-line companies (why hasn't that bra company answered my question yet?), I got an e-mail from a nice person named Walter within minutes.

Walter told me that had changed servers only the day before and they were having some problems, but if I tried again, thing should be o.k. Also, not one of the three orders had gone through, so my credit card was safe. I tried to place the order again, and got the same error message. I immediately let Walter know and THEN he wrote back to say that they were trying to get in touch with their tech person and that he would e-mail me as soon as he knew things were working again. He also assured me they had plenty of shirts in stock.

The next morning when I checked my e-mail, there was an e-mail from Walter assuring me things were working and I was able to place my order. On Saturday--that's yesterday, the day after I placed the order--the shirts arrived. Now that's great customer service.

Who Was that Hooded Man?

Last week, I saw what looked like an uncredited cameo by Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn on The Colbert Report. The video of the scene should be here. I'd like someone to confirm whether Viggo was indeed under the Strider costume. Although his voice didn't sound quite right--I'm so used to the soft-voiced Viggo rather than the troups rousing Viggo--he was wearing the beard I've seen him in promoting his new movie and it sure looked like him in the close-in shots. That final line about going after some orcs made it seem pretty likely it was Viggo--just in case the audience had doubts.

Why I Like Viggo

Sometimes he's so quiet on screen that you have to strain to hear what he's saying. On the other hand, he can deliver the rousing purpose speech (you know, the one Morgan Freeman had to deliver for Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and you're ready to follow him into battle. He looks great in costume. He's a really good horseman. But what I really like about Viggo Mortensen is that his life isn't all about acting. In addition to acting, he's an accomplished photographer, writer, publisher, and activist. He was one of the first people in Hollywood to come out against the Bush administration, wearing a self-produced "No Blood for Oil" t-shirt on an interview show while promoting "The Lord of the Rings."

Viggo's publishing operation, Perceval Press, is located in Santa Monica. The front page of the Perceval Press website contains all kinds of squibs and links, much of it political. A good portion of it is not even in English (oh to be a polyglot.) Every once in a while, Viggo even adds some commentary of his own. I really liked the speech he gave in support of a Democratic candidate for Congress running in the Republican district of upstate New York where Viggo graduated from high school. Lately, Viggo's been recommending reading the Constitution and a list of other works to see how scary things are under this administration in Washington. (A letter to my local paper this morning recommended watching Judgment at Nuremburg for the same purpose.) I found the following quotes on a recent visit:

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. -Dante

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. -Joseph Goebbels

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908

I'd recommend a visit to the Perceval Press website for the provocative reading material you can find on-line and to do a little shopping as well. I do like the "IMPEACH, REMOVE, JAIL" t-shirts, but they've been sold out every time I've check to buy one.

This Day in History

I really enjoy the New York Times feature on "this day in history." Today's marked the end of the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, something, as Len says, "from the childhood of my youth." Woodstock actually took place in Bethel, New York because they lost the original location for some reason. But say "Woodstock" and everyone over a certain age knows exactly what you're talking about.

The poster here is not the original for the event, but it is the one which always comes to mind. I remember one hung in the New College student lounge at Hofstra when I started there in September that year. I think Len had an artist do a parody of it for a Marvel comic he wrote around the time of the 25th anniversary of the festival.

I lived in a different part of the Catskill mountains from where this phenomena occurred, but there was no way in hell my parents would have permitted me to attend. Truth be known, half a million people in the mud with limited toilets would not have been my idea of a good time, even then. A number of people near and dear to me were there, however, and it was an iconic event to my generation.

My husband has his pristine tickets in a drawer in his office. Nobody collected tickets when there were that many gate-crashers. He and his good friend Peter went. They had a car to sleep in, but Len claims they were still covered in mud. My friend Karen was there as well. I think she may have been a volunteer in the medical services tent, or maybe that was another friend of mine.

Even in my small town, news of the upcoming event had been heard and some people I with whom I had just graduated from high school planned to go as a fling before we went off to college in September. I don't know if they got there or not. The road conditions rivaled present-day L.A. in a rain-storm. Traffic was stopped dead for many miles on the major thoroughfares. People who had tickets couldn't get within 25 miles of the place. People abandoned their cars and got out to walk.

I remember well that it was a very wet summer and that some Native Americans attributed the rain to the gods' anger that man had walked on the moon in July. I don't think the film A Walk on the Moon accurately reflects the wet weather of that summer, but you do get to see a pre-Aragorn Viggo Mortensen as the sexy "blouse man" who whisks Diane Lane off to the Festival. Maybe I'll slip that into the DVD player tonight for fun.