I've seen some previews of the new movie, The Mist, which looks really good and horribly depressing. As I have been in poor spirits lately, I decided to forego the movie for now (catch it on DVD later or something) and read the original Stephen King story instead, published as a novella in the collection Skeleton Crew. It being Stephen King, of course the library had it. So the night before last, I settled in for what I thought would be a pleasant read.
Yeah, right.
Word to the wise: Never, ever, EVER stay up until 2 am reading a scary story by Stephen King. Particularly one of his short stories written in the heyday of his talents. Oh, man, I barely slept, and when I did, I dreamed of fogbanks, giant insect-thingies and the small-town grocery store that I used to go to back when I lived in Lanesville, Indiana.
Oh, the story was good. It was can't-put-the-book-down good. Hence my staying up way past my bedtime, curled up in the comfy chair with my knees raised up so I could perch the big hardback volume of the book on them. But dayum, it was freakin' scary!
Some of the story is rather dated. It was written in the early 1980's and some of the plot points (like the protagonist's four-wheel drive car) are not issues nowadays like they would be then. From spoilers on the internet, some things were updated and evidently the end of the story was changed as well, making the movie in the words of one reviewer "the most depressing thing I have ever seen". Not that the original ending was all upbeat or anything, but still...
There are some excellent movies that are brilliant, like Schindler's List or Se7en, which I thought were wonderful examples of the filmmakers' craft and which, having seen once, I refuse to watch again because they're so damn depressing. I have a feeling that The Mist is going to fall into that catagory. Maybe my old bud from the Elitist Bastards, Mightygodking, will do one of his famous reviews for us?
Anyway, last night, my bedtime reading consisted of a half-chapter from Donald Keene's Seeds in the Heart, which is like being with a good friend who is showing you all the cool things about early Japanese literature. And is not scary at all. I am happy to report there were no giant insects in my dreams last night, although there might have been a tanka or two from a guy swathed in layers of silk who looked remarkably like Sanada Hiroyuki.
Okay, this is an experiment with cross-posting my Vox blog to my LJ, so any LJ readers, please let me know if this works okay for you.
So for Thanksgiving, we did what we usually do and eschewed wanktastic family gatherings for a simple meal-for-two at the Potter's Mill, a scenic Bed and Breakfast down in Bellevue, a little ways south of here.
Here's the view as we head towards downtown Dubuque (at least on the highway--it's actually faster to walk down our street to get there).
We pass Murphy's Bluff. This picture does it no justice--it looms over the grocery store (unseen on the left side) like some kind of monstrous beast.
To get to Bellevue, we take Hwy 52 (the River Road). This was once the main route linking Dubuque to the outside world. Now it's a windy old country road. Very scenic, though.
Of course we're in Iowa, so there are a lot of these around. ;-D
And these, too. There's a strange kind of beauty to the cornfields in winter.
And we arrive at the not-so-thriving metropolis of Bellevue (pop. 2,350). Lovely spot, floods occasionally. It also got hit by a big tornado last spring, but they've cleaned up the mess quite nicely.
At last! We reach the Mill!
Not supposed to take pictures inside, but here's the sign.
And the original millstone that went with the building.
It's hard to convey the real size of this place. It's huge, especially for a wooden building.
On the way back, we passed through the City of St. Donatus (pop 140). Every municipality in Iowa is called a "city" regardless of its size. St. Donatus Church is famous for its outdoor Way of the Cross, where every Easter, thousands of pilgrims converge to make their way up the hillside.
Next, it was back to Dubuque for the Festival of Trees, a fundraiser for Mercy Hospital's Children's Fund.
This is pretty much what it looked like inside, but we took some pictures of our favorite trees.
"But we've got the biggest Balls Of Them All!!" was what was running through my mind when I saw this one.
Very Glittery. Would look nice in our house, but our Xmas trees tend to be pretty pedestrian.
And the highlight of the Festival, the Harry Potter Tree. Notice Fawkes in the lower right-hand corner.
And the other side of the HP tree. I don't see much Slytherin representation, however. :-P
What's better that hot chocolate during those cold winter evenings? With whip cream and marshmellows on top!
This tree was downright fugly, but it made me laugh.
Picture doesn't do this tree justice (forgive me, I'm a bad photographer). It was quite charming.
And of course, the tree we all remember. You know the one with the tinsel that would choke the pets, the big bulbs that got so hot they'd set the tree on fire, and the glass ornaments that would shatter at every given opportunity? Oh, those good old days!
I had a hard time getting a good picture of this one, but it was one of the most interesting "trees" there.
This is the Five Flags Theatre, which sits directly across from the hotel where the Festival of Trees was. I love this building! Usually, I don't get over to this part of downtown so I thought I'd get a picture of it.
All in all, we had a fun time, and the food was delicious. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was a good one!
One of the things that really makes me appreciate the life I have (well, besides watching COPS, which is enough to make anybody happy that they're not on camera with The Men and Women of Law Enforcement) is to read books about The Great Depression of the 1930's. I grew up hearing stories from my grandparents about how hard life was back then and quite frankly, it doesn't hurt to go back and remember those times and realize how very spoiled we are. I recently read an excellent book on the subject of the Dust Bowl.
I picked up The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan on a whim at Borders awhile back and just got around to reading it. Unlike many history books, this one wasn't a boring rendition of names and statistics, but focused rather on the lives of a handful of people who lived through the Dust Bowl. Egan gathered a lot of his information through interviews, and then rounded out the stories with rich detail about prairie life during the first part of the 20th century. He focuses on a few communities in the Texas Panhandle, western Oklahoma, eastern Colorado and western Kansas--the areas hardest hit by the dust storms.
What's amazing is how this
preventable tragedy was just permitted to happen, all in the name of
greed. People were getting rich on wheat crops and land speculation,
left and right, and then the drought came (right as the Great
Depression hit) and everyone was struck down. If there hadn't have
been a depression at the time, maybe people would have been able to
just leave, but in those times, jobs were scarce all over the country.
And what was scary about these circumstances was that you could see the
present problems in the American economy being reflected in the mirror
of the past. We have repeated history's mistakes, just in a new
fashion.
Egan is a superior writer, and the reader really gets to know and love the people he portrays. I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in American history, or just in historical writing. It sounds cliche, but I literally had a hard time putting this book down. It was a brilliant work of non-fiction.
I also had a chance in the past couple of weeks to sit down and rewatch Twin Peaks, which has been released in a "definitive Gold-Box edition". It had been awhile since I last saw it and it was just as good as I remembered. What was really amazing to me was the high quality of the transfer. I had a copy of the videotapes from way-back-when and had only seen the series in rather low-quality form. It was a delight to be able to notice new quirky details after all this time.
Twin Peaks first aired when I was still living down in Texas, and I remember meeting up with my co-workers at the mortgage company in the break room every Friday morning to discuss the previous night's episode. I didn't really care who killed Laura Palmer, but enjoyed watching Agent Cooper work his way through the quirky little town. I do remember thinking that the high-school kids all looked like refugees from the 1950's most of the time, although watching the series now, it's funny to see that the characters who were more modernly dressed are the ones that seem horribly dated. Has fashion changed so much since then? I guess it has. Dang, where did the time go?
Strangely, even in these days of shows like Heros, Lost, House and the Sopranos, Twin Peaks still stands up as excellent television. It only goes to show how far ahead of its time the show was. I really enjoyed my little trip back in time while I watched the series again. It was like being 24 years old again all over.
The set has plenty of amusing extras (including a set of postcards), although a commentary track might have been nice. Still, well worth the money, especially if you can catch it on deep discount.
Next up: Honey and Clover (anime version). I've been meaning to watch HachiKuro for a while now, but now that there's a live-action version coming out this winter, it seems high time.
