I read an interesting book recently--No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner, by Robert Schrum. Schrum has been an active political consultant to Democratic candidates since he was a teenager volunteering for JFK. He is a dedicated, heart-felt liberal who has had long, close relationships with the likes of Ted Kennedy, Al Gore and John Kerry, in addition to major Democratic candidates from the past three decades.
The book was entertaining, enjoyable and educational. Importantly, it changed my thinking about Democrats in general, and certain Democrats in particular. Now I've never been opposed to most of the ideals of the Democratic party, and truth be told lean more to the left than to the right on most issues. But I've never liked any of the actual Democrats. But I liked Schrum (of course, he authored the book!) and over time I began to like Ted Kennedy quite a bit, and even John Kerry some.
It was a little disheartening to see the political process laid out so nakedly as a matter of branding and positioning--one marketing case after another. But it's the reality we live with and it isn't likely to change.
I think it's good sometimes to read contrary political points of view. It forces you to deal with their arguments and positions. Too often we read and watch stuff that aims only to reinforce our firmly held beliefs, which I guess is what makes Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh so popular. But that's laughing at your own jokes.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Or Not to Be
I’m about to strongly recommend a movie that most of you aren’t going to want to watch. It won’t matter that the movie is adapted from perhaps the greatest literary work of all time. Nor that it has received critical acclaim and won numerous industry awards. Or even that it has a wonderfully eclectic all-star cast with actors you know and love. Most of you will still will not be interested.
But for those of you that have the slightest attraction to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 movie version, just out on DVD, is not to be missed. Set creatively in the 19th century, Branagh’s Hamlet is an unabridged four-hour spectacle with breathtaking sets, delightful costumes and a terrific score. Having worked the genre before in the excellent Much Ado About Nothing, Branagh’s cinematic liberties, such as enlightening flashbacks and lingering close-ups, somehow makes the production feel alive, energetic and contemporary.
The casting is fun and unusual, and not just for the liberal use of American actors. I wish I wouldn’t have known and could have been pleasantly surprised by the cast, which includes Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Charlton Heston, Gerard Depardieu, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Sir John Gielgud, Judi Dench, Richard Attenborough and Rufus Sewell, plus Branagh’s own riveting performance as Hamlet.
(By the way, this is a textbook case for ClearPlay. Although most people won’t find Shakespeare’s sometimes coarse language offensive, the sex scenes are significantly more explicit than you would expect, and in fact would make watching the movie in schools a bit of a problem, a terribly wasted opportunity.)
But be warned: Even if you’re comfortable with English accents, the dialogue is often hard to follow, and even the uber-literary Lanee found the going tedious at times. My advice is to relax and not worry about it. If you don’t know the play, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little prior research to better follow the story. And you might want to stretch the 242 minutes over two nights. But if you’re not intimidated by Shakespeare or period pieces or Elizabethan language or four-hour movies, then give Hamlet a try.
To watch, or not to watch. That is the question.
Whether to ennoble your mind with four hours of the immortal Bard,
Or to take arms against Elizabethan culture,
and watch instead a Bruckheimer action flick.
To die. To sleep. No more.
But for those of you that have the slightest attraction to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 movie version, just out on DVD, is not to be missed. Set creatively in the 19th century, Branagh’s Hamlet is an unabridged four-hour spectacle with breathtaking sets, delightful costumes and a terrific score. Having worked the genre before in the excellent Much Ado About Nothing, Branagh’s cinematic liberties, such as enlightening flashbacks and lingering close-ups, somehow makes the production feel alive, energetic and contemporary.
The casting is fun and unusual, and not just for the liberal use of American actors. I wish I wouldn’t have known and could have been pleasantly surprised by the cast, which includes Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Charlton Heston, Gerard Depardieu, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Sir John Gielgud, Judi Dench, Richard Attenborough and Rufus Sewell, plus Branagh’s own riveting performance as Hamlet.
(By the way, this is a textbook case for ClearPlay. Although most people won’t find Shakespeare’s sometimes coarse language offensive, the sex scenes are significantly more explicit than you would expect, and in fact would make watching the movie in schools a bit of a problem, a terribly wasted opportunity.)
But be warned: Even if you’re comfortable with English accents, the dialogue is often hard to follow, and even the uber-literary Lanee found the going tedious at times. My advice is to relax and not worry about it. If you don’t know the play, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little prior research to better follow the story. And you might want to stretch the 242 minutes over two nights. But if you’re not intimidated by Shakespeare or period pieces or Elizabethan language or four-hour movies, then give Hamlet a try.
To watch, or not to watch. That is the question.
Whether to ennoble your mind with four hours of the immortal Bard,
Or to take arms against Elizabethan culture,
and watch instead a Bruckheimer action flick.
To die. To sleep. No more.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Stupid is as Stupid Does
Was down in Zion last week with Angelica, Ryan, Lanee and our friends the Eldredges. We did Subway one day, and four of us went to Birch Hollow the next. We cut the trip short because flash floods made the canyons too dangerous.
I like to take beginners to Birch Hollow because it's a pretty easy technical canyon--well bolted, usually dry, never crowded (I've never seen another person in there) and has straight-forward raps. And I've done it a number of times before, so I guess I've gotten comfortable with it. Apparently, too comfortable.
The longest rap is 120', so I took a brand-new 200' 9mm static rope and an extra 100' rope to pull when needed. The first four raps were under 100' and only required one rope. Since we had a first-timer and a few novices, we generally double-stranded, which added friction and safety. Then we hit the 120', which I rigged with a biner-block to single strand, since the rope wasn't long enough to double. The three others went down first, and I secured the 100' pull rope to the first rope with a fisherman's knot, and tossed it over. That's when I did something very stupid and careless, because I was in a hurry (rain coming in the afternoon) and it was only Birch Hollow.
There's a little ledge on the face, so I thought maybe I'd clean up the rope, get rid of the block so it didn't catch on the pull-through afterwards, and go down double-strand. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until about 40 feet down Angelica asked me how I was planning on rappelling through the knot on the one side. Uh ... Oh yeah, that's why my plan was to go down single-strand. The last minute change created a small problem.
I have never passed a knot "live," i.e. in canyon conditions. But I have read about it and practiced the technique a bit in my backyard. The process is to secure yourself to the rope above, so you can take the pressure off your rappelling device, and unharness it and reattach below the knot, all the time held fast by a friction knot, such as a prusik. I've practiced prusiks before, but never had to actually use them to survive. I also had a spare ATC rappelling device on my harness, and hooked that in below the knot, but still had to free myself from my primary device, which required a good knot above.
Normally I take a few small cords that I know make good prusiks, but since this was only Birch Hollow, I had left these in the car. Same with the brand new Petzl ascenders I just bought, which would have done the trick in minutes. Instead, I had to try to use a sling to tie a prusik to my double-strand new rope and clip to my harness, and I couldn't get the knot to hold. I tried a second one with the same result.
I always carry some small Tri-Bloc ascenders, which are difficult to use, but will do in a pinch. Unfortunately, these had somehow gotten completely jammed together on the carabiner and I could not free them. I sent them down to the folks on the ground and they could not free them either. So they were useless.
Ryan, Angelica and Lanee were getting very worried. They heaped their packs on the ground below me to try to soften my potential 80-foot fall, should this happen, and were already making search and rescue plans. I was nervous too, but not panicky. I knew that if I could just slow things down, I would be able to get out of this, and that my risk level was low. But I also understood that another mistake could be tragic, and that the skies were darkening and heavy rains were coming soon and we did need to get out of the canyon.
I pulled up the tied rope and cut a three foot section off the bottom and tried that as a prusik, but it was even worse. Finally, I tried another friction knot with a sling and ... it held. By this time I was sweating profusely and my leg was falling asleep and I looked down at my harness to see five 'biners clipped in from the prusiks and the rap devices and it looked like the electrical cords in back of my computer. It was difficult to see clearly, and harder yet to focus, but eventually I unhooked everything, and slid down the rope safe, sound and relieved.
Naturally, I've thought about this quite a bit. There were a number of other escape approaches I could have taken. But the real lesson learned is that I was careless and stupid, taking Birch Hollow for granted. But 120 feet is deadly no matter where it is, and I would have been smart to take my ascenders and my prusik cords, and smarter yet to think through the rap before I rigged in double-stranded.
I think life is like that. We don't often start with big mistakes. We make little ones, in areas that don't concern us much. And that's what gets us into trouble. Now I have a little more respect for the Birch Hollows in my life.
I like to take beginners to Birch Hollow because it's a pretty easy technical canyon--well bolted, usually dry, never crowded (I've never seen another person in there) and has straight-forward raps. And I've done it a number of times before, so I guess I've gotten comfortable with it. Apparently, too comfortable.
The longest rap is 120', so I took a brand-new 200' 9mm static rope and an extra 100' rope to pull when needed. The first four raps were under 100' and only required one rope. Since we had a first-timer and a few novices, we generally double-stranded, which added friction and safety. Then we hit the 120', which I rigged with a biner-block to single strand, since the rope wasn't long enough to double. The three others went down first, and I secured the 100' pull rope to the first rope with a fisherman's knot, and tossed it over. That's when I did something very stupid and careless, because I was in a hurry (rain coming in the afternoon) and it was only Birch Hollow.
There's a little ledge on the face, so I thought maybe I'd clean up the rope, get rid of the block so it didn't catch on the pull-through afterwards, and go down double-strand. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until about 40 feet down Angelica asked me how I was planning on rappelling through the knot on the one side. Uh ... Oh yeah, that's why my plan was to go down single-strand. The last minute change created a small problem.
I have never passed a knot "live," i.e. in canyon conditions. But I have read about it and practiced the technique a bit in my backyard. The process is to secure yourself to the rope above, so you can take the pressure off your rappelling device, and unharness it and reattach below the knot, all the time held fast by a friction knot, such as a prusik. I've practiced prusiks before, but never had to actually use them to survive. I also had a spare ATC rappelling device on my harness, and hooked that in below the knot, but still had to free myself from my primary device, which required a good knot above.
Normally I take a few small cords that I know make good prusiks, but since this was only Birch Hollow, I had left these in the car. Same with the brand new Petzl ascenders I just bought, which would have done the trick in minutes. Instead, I had to try to use a sling to tie a prusik to my double-strand new rope and clip to my harness, and I couldn't get the knot to hold. I tried a second one with the same result.
I always carry some small Tri-Bloc ascenders, which are difficult to use, but will do in a pinch. Unfortunately, these had somehow gotten completely jammed together on the carabiner and I could not free them. I sent them down to the folks on the ground and they could not free them either. So they were useless.
Ryan, Angelica and Lanee were getting very worried. They heaped their packs on the ground below me to try to soften my potential 80-foot fall, should this happen, and were already making search and rescue plans. I was nervous too, but not panicky. I knew that if I could just slow things down, I would be able to get out of this, and that my risk level was low. But I also understood that another mistake could be tragic, and that the skies were darkening and heavy rains were coming soon and we did need to get out of the canyon.
I pulled up the tied rope and cut a three foot section off the bottom and tried that as a prusik, but it was even worse. Finally, I tried another friction knot with a sling and ... it held. By this time I was sweating profusely and my leg was falling asleep and I looked down at my harness to see five 'biners clipped in from the prusiks and the rap devices and it looked like the electrical cords in back of my computer. It was difficult to see clearly, and harder yet to focus, but eventually I unhooked everything, and slid down the rope safe, sound and relieved.
Naturally, I've thought about this quite a bit. There were a number of other escape approaches I could have taken. But the real lesson learned is that I was careless and stupid, taking Birch Hollow for granted. But 120 feet is deadly no matter where it is, and I would have been smart to take my ascenders and my prusik cords, and smarter yet to think through the rap before I rigged in double-stranded.
I think life is like that. We don't often start with big mistakes. We make little ones, in areas that don't concern us much. And that's what gets us into trouble. Now I have a little more respect for the Birch Hollows in my life.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Why I Blog
I have been keeping up this blog for a year, and the other day someone asked me the obvious question: Why? There are several reasons, I suppose. Mainly, it is a creative outlet, an opportunity for self-expression. Even the lowliest amateur pianist enjoys sitting down to play now and then. The closet artist paints or draws. And so many of us, no matter how bad our voices, have been caught singing in the shower. Writing is a way for me to release a little creative energy.
And I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I also consider this an opportunity to practice my writing. Naturally, this suggests that I have higher aspirations, and hope to ply my craft in more public venues. That is true, and while I toil silently on screenplays and poems and the occasional letter, the blog is a constant reminder, an obligation to practice, a duty that tracked and a box that is checked. And maybe someday that novel will begin to take shape. Or maybe not.
The blog is also a way to formulate my thoughts on subjects, and to share these with family and a few close friends. And perhaps that's a little vain, but no more so than the dying art of literate conversation. And perhaps, after I have breathed my last breath, a folder or a website with my ramblings will be read by one of my grandchildren, and we will get reacquainted then.
One year and running. Log on. Slog on. Blog on.
And I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I also consider this an opportunity to practice my writing. Naturally, this suggests that I have higher aspirations, and hope to ply my craft in more public venues. That is true, and while I toil silently on screenplays and poems and the occasional letter, the blog is a constant reminder, an obligation to practice, a duty that tracked and a box that is checked. And maybe someday that novel will begin to take shape. Or maybe not.
The blog is also a way to formulate my thoughts on subjects, and to share these with family and a few close friends. And perhaps that's a little vain, but no more so than the dying art of literate conversation. And perhaps, after I have breathed my last breath, a folder or a website with my ramblings will be read by one of my grandchildren, and we will get reacquainted then.
One year and running. Log on. Slog on. Blog on.
Monday, August 06, 2007
My Minnesota
Just returned from a 10-day trip to Minnesota, spent almost entirely at Rebecca's family cabin on Whiteface, where there was no Internet, computer or cable TV, and my cell phone dropped calls almost as fast as I could pick them up. It was actually a wonderful break to be away from the trappings of technology, which gave certain parts of my mind a rest, and caused other slumbering corners to awake and wander unfettered.
Absent of technology, my time was spent creating memories, of which there were many--kayaking on the Brule River with a bald eagle circling 100 feet overhead, playing bocce ball on the Lake Superior beach, talking politics with Tim, waterskiing on glass just before dark, the stunning red sunsets at Whiteface, a new generation on the tire swing, Layla swimming and eating mud, hot saunas at night followed by a cooling swim (often sans swimsuit), touch football, endless card games, two delightfully mindless detective novels, reuniting with aunts, uncles and cousins, having breakfast with my long-lost childhood best friend, deer and chipmunks and beaver dams and enough food to add five pounds to my aging frame.
Even the road trip was enjoyable, listening to Cat Stevens, Edwin McCain, Carly Simon, Jack Johnson, Barenaked Ladies, John Mayer, Robert Cray, Aimee Mann, Delbert Mclinton, Cannonball Adderly, Frank Sinatra and much more from my iPod. After wistfully passing through Des Moines, unsuccessfully looking for a motel in Council Bluffs, Omaha and Lincoln, and finally finding a vacancy in Kearny at 2:30 a.m. Listening critically to the "Don't Know Much about American History" mp3 audiobook. Memorizing a John Donne poem. Driving countless miles of freeway--an asphalt invitation to think and think and think some more.
There is certainly an allure to trips to more exotic locations--scuba diving and rain forests, or medieval castles and great museums. But I think there will always be room in my life for vacations made simple, filled with good company and days easy and relaxed, where memories refresh like lake water in the night and satisfy like fresh raspberry pie.
Absent of technology, my time was spent creating memories, of which there were many--kayaking on the Brule River with a bald eagle circling 100 feet overhead, playing bocce ball on the Lake Superior beach, talking politics with Tim, waterskiing on glass just before dark, the stunning red sunsets at Whiteface, a new generation on the tire swing, Layla swimming and eating mud, hot saunas at night followed by a cooling swim (often sans swimsuit), touch football, endless card games, two delightfully mindless detective novels, reuniting with aunts, uncles and cousins, having breakfast with my long-lost childhood best friend, deer and chipmunks and beaver dams and enough food to add five pounds to my aging frame.
Even the road trip was enjoyable, listening to Cat Stevens, Edwin McCain, Carly Simon, Jack Johnson, Barenaked Ladies, John Mayer, Robert Cray, Aimee Mann, Delbert Mclinton, Cannonball Adderly, Frank Sinatra and much more from my iPod. After wistfully passing through Des Moines, unsuccessfully looking for a motel in Council Bluffs, Omaha and Lincoln, and finally finding a vacancy in Kearny at 2:30 a.m. Listening critically to the "Don't Know Much about American History" mp3 audiobook. Memorizing a John Donne poem. Driving countless miles of freeway--an asphalt invitation to think and think and think some more.
There is certainly an allure to trips to more exotic locations--scuba diving and rain forests, or medieval castles and great museums. But I think there will always be room in my life for vacations made simple, filled with good company and days easy and relaxed, where memories refresh like lake water in the night and satisfy like fresh raspberry pie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)