Regular Snowfalls Outside, Things Growing Inside

 My personal trainer is working on my upper body this winter.  It keeps giving a little more snow to shovel four or five times a week.  Today there was about three or four new inches.  

We've also had foggy days.  Which in December, when we get down to five and a half hours or so between sunrise and sunset, makes it seem even darker.  But the snow and ice do such beautiful tricks.  

Here's ice patterns after shoveling the deck.  We'd had a couple days where it got above freezing and then froze again.  I hadn't gotten the snow off the deck, so there was this thin glaze of ice after shoveling.  It should get more focused if you click on it.

And my van was used by the snow as a canvas too.  

And here are some spruce needles holding up a blanket of snow that's turning icy.

Inside, the green stuff continues to give the illusion of a different season.  This is a bromeliad I brought up from my mom's yard where they grow like weeds.  We've had it here maybe 20 years.  It bloomed the first two years, but hasn't since.  I guess I need to check the local bromeliad society to get some tips.  It has offered up new sprouts so now I have three of these.  

But I can't put them where people move back and forth.  The thorns - look closely - are nasty.  

And it's nice that I still have geraniums blooming.

And someone sent us a box of pears.  We've been eating away.  I made a pear omelette and J made a couple of pear tarts.  

Alaska Airlines' Virgin Influences Show Up In COVID Safety Dance Video

 Virgin Airlines was bought by Alaska Airlines.  Virgin had created a safety instruction video that played before all their flights with an elaborate routine of dancing flight attendants (see video at end of post).  And apparently there are vestiges of Virgin still left in the combined airlines. 

I still can wait to get on an airplane until after I've been vaccinated.  

For those who never had the chance to fly on Virgin, below is one of their safety videos.  Well worth watching to see how to take a boring routine and make it entertainment. 

AIFF2020: Paper Spiders And Delusion

 I guess this is a film festival post because I'm starting with a film I saw the other night - Paper Spiders.

In the film a widow lives with her about-to-go-to-college daughter.  Her husband, a doctor, has been dead two or three years.  New neighbors move in and the mother gets upset because she sees him,

Screen shot from Paper Spiders

through the window, back into a tree on her lawn.  

She runs out and comes back to tell her daughter that he told her to fuck off.

The mom later says the neighbor is throwing rocks at their house.  One night she's sure he's on the roof.  The daughter goes next door to just talk to the guy and the wife yells at her.  "Talk to her?  He can't come within ten feet of her. Your mother put out a restraining order against him.  Your mother is deeply disturbed."

Mom knows he's an electrical engineer and she's sure he's sending some kind of waves at her that are giving her headaches.  Whatever explanation the daughter gives, the mom twists it around saying "that proves what I'm saying."

"He's trying to torture me, it's a power struggle, can't you see?"

The daughter, Melanie, tells her mom her grades are dropping and the school counselor wants to do family therapy.  The mom quickly starts talking about the "stalker" and the counselor pulls out the DSM and reads her about delusional disorder (my definition comes from The Cleveland Clinic)

"What is delusional disorder?

Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness — called a “psychosis”— in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated."

The counselor asks if the mother recognizes any of the symptoms.  The mom's response:  "I think you nailed it.  He has delusional disorder."

Mom hires a private detective to track the man's movements.

They meet the detective for the final report.  The detective chronicles the neighbor's movements.  On Saturday he went to St Percy's hospital.  

• Mom: "You see, he's getting psychiatric treatment."  
• Detective: "I've been in the business for 25 years, so if there was any suspecious activity, I assure you, I would catch it."
• Mom:  "You understand what this means.  We're dealing with a seasoned criminal who can out maneuver a seasoned investigator with 25 years experience."

Things get worse and worse and eventually the mom moves out so the neighbor can't persecute her and sleeps in the car to stay safe from the neighbor.  

As we all watch Donald Trump claim that Biden stole the election, this delusional woman comes to mind.  She's certain about the neighbor.  Every shred of evidence offered to disprove the neighbor's evil mission is turned around as further proof of his devious cleverness.  And Trump ignores the fact that many of the judges turning down his appeals are judges he appointed!  And he doesn't have quite the agility the mom in the movie had to turn around such facts to her advantage. He just changes the subject or blames the messenger.  

Part of me believes that Trump knows exactly what he's doing, but his behavior is so, so similar to this character's, perhaps he doesn't.  

If Trump weren't president of the United States, a normal family would get him treatment.  Or at least try to prevent him from destroying their lives. Given the power/money dynamics of the Trump family I suspect he might not be challenged, even if the kids saw their inheritance being frittered away.  (I don't know whether his assets are greater than his debts.)  

And even in the movie, the daughter had a really difficult time getting her mom treatment.  She was homeless first and then involuntarily admitted only after a very public incident where she turned on her daughter for not supporting her.   

How many of Trump's supporters also have delusional disorder?  Probably not that many.  After all, their news sources all support this mass delusion.   The mom had no one supporting her delusions.  

Here's what the Cleveland Clinic says about treatment:

"How is delusional disorder treated?

Treatment for delusional disorder most often includes medication and psychotherapy (a type of counseling); however, delusional disorder is highly resistant to treatment with medication alone. People with severe symptoms or who are at risk of hurting themselves or others might need to be in the hospital until the condition is stabilized."

The mom was given medication and was in the hospital two weeks.  Even then, at the end she marches off to confront the neighbor again only to be told he's been dead for a month.  But the mom says that's bullshit and points at some equipment in the hallway to prove it's the machine he's been using to torture her.  The neighbor looks and says, "That's his chemo machine."

I don't think any of Trump's destructivenes will end on January 20th.  There are too many people who share Trump's delusions, not just about the election, but about every thing else.  Trump supporters are talking about overturning the election still.  

The Texas lawsuit asked the Supreme Court to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots.  Over 100 House Republicans joined the lawsuit.  And even after the Supreme Court (including three of Trump's appointees) voted 9-2 against Trump of procedural grounds and 9-0 on substance,  Law&Crime notes:

"In response [to the Supreme Court decision], Texas GOP Chairman Allen West on Friday erroneously claimed that the high court’s ruling—which was widely expected among legal experts and court watchers—created a precedent that allows states to act unlawfully in the administration of elections, leading him to float the idea that the Lone Star State should look into forming a separate nation. In other words, he is preaching secession."

And Trump is inciting his followers by insisting that he actually won the election and that Biden stole it with fraudulent votes.  

At some point, the Democrats are going to have to play hardball.   

"18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

You can see that this discussion could go on and on.  Gore and Kerry conceded their elections even though there was much more evidence than Trump has that they won.  Even Lincoln wanted to welcome the South back into the union to make that return more cordial.  But that resulted in another 100 years of de facto slavery and inequality for blacks.  (See for example White Rage by Carol Anderson.)  It seems to me the extreme behavior of Trump requires serious consequences lest these new excesses become the norm.  

AIFF2020: The Subject Took Me By Surprise

I finally figured out the Q&A scheduling [it's tricky just seeing the times, so I've put up a schedule on the AIFF2020 page above] and Hometown Pride was going to have the Q&A Thursday at 6pm.

I watched Hometown Pride this afternoon.  This is a fun and easy to watch film about a very out and outgoing gay man who comes back to his tiny Ohio hometown to dance at their annual beauty pageant. Good, not remarkable.  We've seen other versions of this story at AIFF in past years.  

Then I went for Paper Spiders.  I'd been avoiding this one because I wasn't sure I wanted to deal with a mother's mental illness, but its Q&A was also coming up.  

We paused Paper Spiders in the middle so we could watch the Q&A for The Last Days of Capitalism.  This was my favorite feature film and I was looking forward to the session.  It's not quite the same on Zoom as it is live at the festival.  But it was a good discussion.  

The back to Paper Spiders which was surprisingly good, but the mom is definitely delusional and paranoid.  But the story was well told and well acted.  There are lots of very good narrative features at this festival.  The title is referred to visually only briefly in one shot.  It leaves a lot to the viewers imagination.  

Then on to another one I was avoiding, because it looked like it was going to be heavy - The Subject.

This film follows a documentary film maker doing a project on Black young men mostly in Harlem.  The difficulties filming his volatile subjects seems to be the focus.  There's also some tension at home which escalates when he hires an assistant.  But then at the end everything kicks up a bunch of notches and we have an amazing confrontation between the film maker and the mother of one of his subjects who has been killed by gang members.  

I feel a little like a fickle boyfriend, but I've abandoned The Last Days of Capitalism and now my favorite feature is The Subject.  I don't want to say too much about it - I think I've told you more than you need to know already.  Just see it.  The issues - the relationship between the filmmaker and his subjects, particularly if the filmmaker is a privileged white male and the subjects are black kids living in poverty and violence - themselves are powerful.  But the final scene is amazing and where the issues are served up like fireworks.  

There's an interview with the director of The Subject Laney Zipoy here.  The AIFF interview was last Saturday and I haven't figured out how, or if we even can, watch the ones we missed.  

AiFF2020: Toprak and The Woman of the Photographs

 I can't believe there are still five narrative features I haven't seen yet.  Or that I'm writing about two obscure films instead of addressing more significant issues.  But there are plenty of people commenting on US politics and not very many commenting on these two films - one  Turkish and and Japanese.  

Toprak - 

I just looked up Toprak on google.translate.  It means Soil.  You don't have to know that watching the movie (I didn't), but it makes a lot of sense.  

Often times, watching a film based in a culture other than one's own, people need to change their sense of time, their pace.  I suspect, given the success of US films around the world, that speeding things up is easier to adapt to than slowing things down.  

This film slows things down a lot.  It takes place in rural Turkey, where this slower pace is the norm.  It focuses on the remnants of one family - a grandmother, her son, and his nephew - who eke out a living growing and selling pomegranates.  It's a theme we've seen repeatedly in AIFF films - young people leaving rural areas and small towns to pursue a more interesting, if not better, life.  And we know this saga in the US and here in Alaska all too well.  

This movie takes us into how these tensions between carrying on the family traditions and breaking the ties plays out in this (and to a much lesser extent one other) Turkish family.  

Originally, a copy of this film without subtitles was up on the AIFF site.  That was corrected yesterday (Wednesday).  Slow down and take a trip to rural Turkey. Pomegranates would make an appropriate snack for this film.

The Woman of the Photographs

We watched this one after Toprak. The topics of this film are very contemporary and the pace much faster.  It's an odd film - the main character doesn't speak a single word until the last few minutes of the film; a praying mantis has a significant supporting role - that explores the boundaries between the reality of who people are - what their actual faces and bodies look like, the manipulated photographic images on social media, or how other people perceive them.  This is a perfect film festival selection.  

I found The Woman of the Photographs a more watchable film than Toprak, I think because the issues raised in Toprak are well-known.  Toprak merely adds a case study to the stories of people leaving their small town/rural lives to larger cities.  Woman of the Photographs offers interesting material for the current concerns about how social media are changing the nature of reality, how we communicate,  and personal identity.  

AIFF2020: Dinner In America: A Movie I Shouldn't Have Liked, But I Did

 I'm falling way behind here.  I'm pretty much picking pictures based on the photo, title, and description.  Here are some I think are worth watching.

Narrative Features

I really didn't expect to like Dinner in America   It starts off in an institutional dining room.  Someone throws up on his tray of food.  I almost stopped it right there.  But I didn't and we get to follow an out of control drug dealer (no, that's just one of his personas) have family dinner in three different homes, do a lot of crazy shit (sorry, that's the best description), and win over both of us.  This is a good movie.  Filmed in Michigan.  

Small Town Wisconsin was filmed in Wisconsin.  We even get a tour of Milwaukee.  Another main character who does lots of things that don't endear him to the others characters or the audience.  A little past midpoint we discussed abandoning the film.  We didn't.  It would have been a mistake.  

Foster Boy - This is more Hollywood than film festival.  It has two well known (there may have been others) actors - Matthew Modine and Louis Gossett Jr. - and  Shaquille O’Neal is the executive producer.  This is a court room drama.  A rich, conservative corporate attorney is assigned, against his will, a pro bono case of a 19 prisoner who is suing the foster care corporation that placed him in about a dozen homes.  A compelling film with appealing heroes and appropriately nasty villains.  

Of the three, I'd say Foster Boy had a number of loose ends - where I couldn't quite believe a) the lead attorney didn't get suspicious faster about his son's cancelled trip or b) all the dirty tricks that happened over Thanksgiving weekend.  I attribute b) to squeezing events that happened over a longer period of time into a couple days to fit the condensed time line of the movie.  The film said it was a fictionalized account of a true story.

Shorts  I think are worth watching:

Masel Tov Cocktail - I've already written about this, but I'm including it again just in case you missed my earlier mention.  At this point, this is my favorite film of the festival.  This was a tricky project and it all fit together wonderfully.  It couldn't have been told as well in any other format than film.  

 Cake Day - A good story told economically and movingly.  

Woman Under the Tree  - Maybe a bit longer than necessary, but it's a well told tale of a homeless woman.  

The Marker - Like Cake Day, a good story told well.  

Happy (Short) Films -  I've added this category because this festival is heavy with issue films.  Here are two shorts, particularly Pathfinder, that present the beauty and wonder of the natural world.  

 Pathfinder - A small group of adventurers put up a slack line high up among snow peaks in Norway with Northern Lights in the background.  Pure joy.

Sky Aelans - Also up in the mountains, the people of the Solomon Islands are protecting the mountain environment.  The camera shares some of the wonders up there worth their care.  

I still have lots of movies to see.  There appears to be a lot worth watching.  More later.  

AIFF2020: Sapelo And A Strong Recommendation For The Last Days Of Capitalism And For Grab My Hand: A Letter To My Dad

Usually Saturday is really busy during the festival with films starting as early as 9 am some years.  But we've somehow gotten into a routine with Netflix that we never watch before it's dark.  (Well, in the summer, before 8 or 9 pm anyway.)  So it didn't seem right to start til late afternoon.  We saw one documentary feature - Sapelo - one shorts program - The Best Ships Are Friendships - and one narrative feature - The Last Days of Capitalism.  

Sapelo is a documentary about. . . well, that's a bit of a problem.  It starts out, it seemed, to be about the Black people who have been living on the island, a ferry ride from mainland Georgia,  for 200 years.  There are lots of pauses to just look at beautiful vistas of the island.  But it meanders into a story about two brothers, their grandmother.  How old are the boys?  Don't remember being told.  I do remember that an older brother was 14, so I'm guessing these two were maybe between 9 and 11.  The grandmother adopted the mother too.  Some of it feels like a reality show.  Some of it feels like an invasion of the kids' privacy, particularly as we watch one of the boys having anger management problems and there's talk of his medication.  He's wearing an ankle bracelet for a while and in the end he's been sent to a detention center.  By the end I felt like these boys were being exploited.  They weren't capable of giving consent.  Was it the grandmother who gave consent?  What was she told they would be filming?  

On the other hand, a unique way of life was being captured.  Well, the end of a unique way of life.  The boys may well treasure this intimate portrait of them when they are older.  But making it public doesn't feel right to me.  

What was the relationship between the Swiss filmmakers and the people on the island.  We never see from or hear about the film makers except near the beginning when one of the boys looks up at the camera and apologizes for his language

The Last Days of Capitalism -  Wow.  Just picked this from the website knowing nothing about it and we were totally absorbed by two actors - Sarah Rose Harper and Mike Faiola.  We had no idea where it was headed.  This was not your ordinary movie fare.  This is what I love about film festivals.  Will I wake up in the morning and wonder what I was thinking?  Not sure.  I just know that we were hooked til the very end.  Recommended.  (Not saying much about the content.  Just know that it is two people probing each other.  Drugs and alcohol and a fair amount of money are involved.)  My hat is off to writer/director Adam Mervis.  

All of the shorts were worth watching.  Grab My Hand: A Letter to My Dad was the one that stands out as visually striking and clever and beautiful and it was the right length for the story.  Nothing unnecessary.  I just don't know why they didn't call it Gatecheck.  Be sure to watch this one.  Camrus Johnson, thanks for this film.  Latchkeys was sweet - I mean that in the best way.

AIFF2020: Opening, Crescendo, Mazel Tov Cocktail, and Green Screens Of The Future

This is the second day of the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Last night we saw the opening ceremony, the opening shorts program, and then we watched Crescendo - a German feature about putting together a peace concert with young Jewish and Palestinian musicians.  I definitely recommend it.  It's a well made movie and the story line is both optimistic and realistic.  This movie was sponsored by the Anchorage Jewish Museum.  

Another German film - Mazel Tov Cocktail - is in the narrative shorts category.  I thought it was great!  As white folks in the US are learning, seems like we've been working on this forever, that each person of color is a unique individual and shouldn't be assumed to behave in some characteristic way, Mazel Too Cocktail looks at the world through the eyes of a Russian Jewish immigrant high school student in Germany as he confronts the many different stereotypes the people around him have of him.  This includes, positive ones, negative ones, from classmates, teachers, people on the street, and even his own parents and grandfather.  But what makes this short stand out is, well, everything.  It's a snappy, irreverent, well acted, well filmed, funny movie with a kick.  I highly recommend it.  

For as much as I've gotten used to Zoom and Jitsi and Skype and Netflix, watching the film festival movies with my wife at home in the living room, just felt wrong.  None of the familiar AIFF faces walking the aisles and lobbies to greet and compare notes with.  None of the audience reactions to the movies. None of the passing exchanges of tips about good movies.  I even miss getting into the cold car and driving from one venue to the other.  (Well, not that much.)

And if people do see great movies, please leave recommendations in the comments.

On the other hand - all the movies are available all the time.  You can watch what you want when you want to.  As many times as you want.  I hope that means I don't miss those hidden gems I went to because there was nothing else in that time slot.  

And we're supposed to get lots of film maker interviews and Q&A's though I'm not quite sure how we're going to figure out when these will happen.  But figuring out new habits keeps us young (or drives us crazy.)

And I thought I'd add the YouTube video I accidentally found the other day on the future (demise) of green screens.  A little behind the scenes of movie making.  

Now that people are using Zoom, more people know about green screens - the green background that allows you to supply the people and objects in front, with a totally different background.  It's called "The Volume" and consists of a wrap around background.  Just watch the video.  It's cool.

Goodbye Rafer Johnson

One more hero in my life moves on.  The picture below was taken two and a half years before I'd enter UCLA as a freshman.  The legacy of Johnson and C.K. Yang and their great sportsmanship (Is there a non-sexist term?) was one of many attractions UCLA held.  At that time, California students who graduated in the top 12.5% of their high school class, were automatically admitted.  Tuition my first semester was something like $68.  And we lived a 30 minute bike ride from campus so my parents were pleased they wouldn't have to pay room and board.  

From LA Times

The Photo Description:  "Rafer Johnson puts on a weightlifting demonstration for Boy Scouts at UCLA in July 1960 as his track teammate C.K. Yang kneels and smiles.  A little more than a month later, Johnson would edge Yang for the decathlon gold medal at the Rome Olympics."

From LA Times:

"He was something special at UCLA

‘Greatest of all Bruins,’ Johnson remained a regular at many events.

By Ben Bolch

Sixty years after he edged a UCLA training partner on weary legs in one of the most dramatic finishes in Olympic history, Rafer Johnson ’s presence continued to blaze on campus like an inextinguishable flame.

He was a regular at track meets and basketball games and gymnastics meets even as his health declined, always graciously accepting requests to pose for photos with anyone who asked. He was also a confidant to longtime athletic director Dan Guerrero, serving as a special advisor who offered wisdom and guidance that no pricey consultant could match.

Johnson’s legacy as a decathlon champion and humanitarian, not to mention his trusted friendship, made it especially meaningful for Guerrero to be part of dedicating the Betsy and Rafer Johnson Track last year at UCLA’s Drake Stadium.

“It’s not a stretch for me to say that Rafer was the greatest of all Bruins,” Guerrero said Wednesday upon learning of Johnson’s death at his home in Sherman Oaks at age 86.

“When you think about it, apart from his athletic prowess, which placed him in history among the most heralded of all athletes, he passionately and selflessly and humbly dedicated his life to better people and our society whether it was through his work with Special Olympics, mentoring young students or his commitment to civil rights. He was a giant, there was no question about that, and while this description is probably thrown around rather capriciously, in this case it’s true. . ."

 Here's a second article they have titled:  Appreciation: Rafer Johnson was more than a great athlete; he was a great man

And if you can't get into the LA Times, here's the Wikipedia entry on Rafer Johnson.

*I'd note that Wikipedia says that C.K. Yang died January 20, 2007 at age 73 in Los Angeles.  

Six Images Winter, Visitors, Nourishment

 

We have several Steller Jays that visit regularly.  Part of me wants you to see how blue it is.  But the snowy background made the exposure of the bird dark.  But when the bird is dark you focus more on it's silhouette.  

It's been snowing close to every day.  I figure my personal trainer is adding an inch or two regularly to get me outside with the snow shovel, since my biking is pretty much curtailed.  

Today it snowed a bit harder.  I think we have about three inches to be shoveled.  

Besides the Steller jay, we had some moose visitors who left messages in the snow to let us know they'd been by.  

Meanwhile, inside our cooking gives other interesting visuals.  

Cooking bananas and kiwis for my morning oatmeal.  

And a whole wheat bread using Mrs. Nash's old bread machine recipe.  Except the bread machine is long gone and the recipe didn't have temperature and time instructions.