I look forward to the colors of autumn in the eastern states of the U.S. because we have a variety of colors. When I have traveled into New England and Canada, the brilliant colors of the various trees are stunning. I was quite surprised when I traveled to Colorado to find the yellows of the Aspen trees to be equally appealing. I've experienced other seasons in the West, but the fall of the year was a pleasant surprise. The areas south of Denver and especially the area around Cripple Creek have some fabulous colors this time of the year, but the yellow/gold of the Aspen trees dominate.
The Garden of the Gods is a beautiful garden filled with huge, natural red stone formations. It is interesting to see that so many locals take their cup of coffee, find a beautiful spot to park and enjoy the view. I understand from the folks who live nearby, they never tire of seeing the beauty of those stones and the constant presence of Pikes Peak in the background. The view from the top of Pikes Peak is a dizzying experience from the thin air altitude of 14,110 ft. elevation.
At the foothills of Pikes Peak and with Cheyenne Mountain in the distance, it would be hard to find a more beautiful setting for the Air Force Academy and its main attraction, the chapel.
If a stair master isn't hard enough, Seven Falls has a climb available with 224 steps from bottom to top for anyone with a strong heart.
My camera worked hard and took over 600 pictures on this trip, but I will enforce some discipline and refrain from posting too many photos. Google posts many more pictures on all of those sites as well.
After seeing the movie The Ghost Writer, reading the novel, The Ghost, by Robert Harris, was an unexpected pleasure. In my previous post, I tried to make sense of the plot and answer some of the questions I found in the movie, so I read the book. Novels written by British authors are interesting for me because they work with our common language in clever, entertaining sentence structures and word choices that send me to the dictionary. It is very enlightening to read impressions of America through the viewpoint of people from other countries. We aren't always perceived in the light that we view ourselves.
Like the movie, the atmosphere of the novel is gray, gray, and more gray. The January weather on Martha's Vineyard sets the scene appropriate to the sense of events that are out of the control of the characters. The hopelessness is brought to mind by the groundskeeper who keeps cleaning up leaves and storm debris only to find it inevitably, repeatedly returns. His struggle is as pointless as the struggle of the characters to make choices that will lead them to more desirable circumstances.
The world that "the ghost" enters is unfamiliar and he becomes lured into it motivated only by the desire to complete his project. He is so unimportant to the outcome of events that we don't even know his name. As he tries to solve the puzzle that is the manuscript penned by his deceased predecessor, he fears he will fall victim to the same fate. The memoirs of the ex-prime minister is completed and published. In solving the puzzle of the life of his subject, the desire of the narrator/ghost writer to remain in the background is out of his control in the end. He becomes as much a pawn as his subject in global intrigue.
The experiences of the movie and the novel were not boring. I take my entertainment too seriously sometimes, but The Ghost makes one think a lot about the world and the powers that control it. Fiction, yes, but sometimes "truth is stranger than fiction." Not a happy thought, but it's realistic.
When a movie is produced from a novel that has been marketed first, my preference is to read the book before seeing the movie. Often that doesn't happen and I see the movie before realizing that it was a novel first. Novels have more details that can't be included within a screenplay and if it isn't written by the novel author, the movie loses much of the ambience that is created in a novel. It is a successful movie on some level if I am intrigued to the point that I will spend the time to read the book after seeing the movie.
The Ghost Writer was a movie that lured me into a plot I had not suspected. I deliberately try not to read reviews of movies before I watch them to see them through an open mind. I read the reviews after I see the movie. I like to make up my own mind and see if I agree with the impressions of the reviewers. The review of this movie in the New York Times was enlightening and provides more than enough analysis of movie making techniques: "Mr. Polanski creates suspense inside the frame through dynamic angles and through the discrete, choreographed movements of the camera and actors. He makes especially effective use of the enormous windows in Lang’s house through which the sky and ocean beckon and threaten."
People and their stories always interest me more than movie-making techniques. After seeing the movie, I will read the book because I want to know more of this plot to see how Robert Harris, who wrote The Ghost, adapted the novel in the screenplay which he "co-authored" with the movie's producer Roman Polanski. Aside from all the negative connotations of that name, the movie is filled with political intrigue, sinister characters and enough dark moods to rival Citizen Kane.
For a story that begins innocently with a job to quickly polish the memoirs of a former prime minister, the job quickly spirals out of control for the ghost writer who begins some research and gets in over his head. The movie leaves more questions than answers for me. Why does a former prime minister spend time in what looks like a WWII German bunker on a beautiful island? Why does not a ghost writer just polish the pre-existing manuscript, take the money and run? Why is he compelled to assume the role of an investigative reporter to try to unravel the complicated lives of the principals of the auto-biography? Perhaps money and power being the root of all evils are much too simple as answers. This amateur movie watcher finds the ever-present alphabet agencies of governments and all-powerful corporations provide more than enough fodder for conspiracies. I agree with James Patterson whose motto is, "Tell me a good story." The Ghost Writer is a good story, and I have to see if the book ends in the same vein as the movie.
Techie Toys are always fun and waste a lot of time on a rainy Sunday afternoon. This show is on one of my favorite sites for sharing photos. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny, summer day and a perfect time to wander around Longwood Gardens.
Takin' a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same,
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where people know, people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.
Cheers Theme Song Lyrics
Title: Where Everbody Knows Your Name
By: Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo
Cheers TV Show
CrazyAboutTV.com
Anyone over thirty remembers those lyrics and the odd assortment of characters that came to visit once a week on TV in the years from 1982 - 1993 through eleven seasons. The actors have moved on to other shows and movies, but the music still rings in my mind. It reminds me how I like my comfortable routines where I know what to expect and it relaxes me. I like to be around the familiar and with people I am used to seeing. I've always felt that "people are all the same" even though some often forget that. I like my rut in life.
This morning I visited my local supermarket for the last time because it closes at the end of the week. It opened a few years after we moved to our home in 1985. My visit today became a very nostalgic experience with Carly Simon wailing Let the River Run from 1988 on the PA system. The shelves were practically empty with the few remaining items selling for 20% off rock bottom prices. Half the lights were off and only a few staff members remained. Customers seemed very subdued like it was a wake.
Certainly the supermarket folks know my face but only call my name when I've used a credit card. That's not the source of the nostalgia. I liked zipping in for a few minutes multiple times a week to grab what I wanted because I knew what was on every aisle and shelf. It was a compact, well-stocked store located a quarter mile from my house. Now I will have to go to a market five miles away. It has practically everything but car tires and far too much floor space with too many aisles and non-grocery items I neither need nor want. I like to grab the milk and bread and keep moving. I will miss the little market nearby.
I don't particularly like change. I like to "go where everyone knows your name and they're always glad you came." I started to wonder where that might be for me. I don't hang out in local bars and I don't report to a job now. Mostly I like to hang out with family, long time friends and the blogs are a big comfortable community. Most of the folks in the blogs that I choose to read recognize that "people are all the same," even though we've assumed some new monikers. I love roaming the blogs because they remind me-- "Takin' a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away?" Life changes and that is the way of the world.
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Old Wives Tales would have us assume that we could tell when a person had reached an advanced age when their penmanship became sloppy and was filled with messy mistakes as though the hand that was writing the letters had become unsteady. Small motor control is necessary to produce the beautiful penmanship that used to be treasured until the technological age hit us.
How often do we have to actually write anything with a pen in hand? If we need a grocery list, put it on the cell phone--punch those buttons, or touch that screen. If we need to do numbers, use the calculator on the cell phone. If we need to sign a legal document, we can type it on the computer and call it an electronic signature. We even have programs available to turn that typing into a script that looks like our signature.
Thankfully, doctors order prescriptions electronically now which might lead to fewer mistakes that resulted from their notoriously poor penmanship. I always thought that sloppy handwriting had a deliberate purpose--to deceive possible criminals--who knows? It certainly led to lots of mistakes on drugs received in drugstores.
If we want to compose our thoughts to write books and essays, we have a large number of options. Word processors are everywhere--on computers, and cell phones or the latest gadgets like IPad.
If we want to pay the bills, who writes checks now? We go online and log into our bank account to pay everything electronically. I noticed this morning at the food store that even though I charged my bill to the credit card, they still wanted me to sign the receipt. Occasionally, I make a short list to myself of something around my desk, but if it is more than a few words, I turn to the keyboard and type it. I might sign my greeting cards but addresses go on envelopes electronically or with pre-printed labels. Soon no one will use paper greeting cards or send them by mail because they are so much easier as e-cards and more variety is available. However, e-cards seem so cold and impersonal.
Is penmanship like the multiplication tables and is it headed for the lost skills list? Spelling, punctuation and grammar are already victims of the technological age. I had a rare occasion today that I needed to write a few sentences by hand and I noticed my handwriting had deteriorated. That's not due to age or poor health, just a lack of practice.
