another buddhist in seattle

Tom, approaching nirvana

My son Tom was playing around on his iPad and/or iPhone with those inane questions that pop up on Facebook, you know the ones like "Which Disney villain are you?", and after answering several seemingly unrelated questions he came up with some answers for his life:  For "Which city should you be living in?", it was suggested that he should be in Seattle, Washington, and "To which religion should you belong?", he was told Buddhism.

"What is Buddhism anyway?" he asks and, for me, that wasn't an easy question to answer.  Thank God (or Buddha) for Wikipedia, and, after giving it some thought, I think I can picture Tom as a Buddhist.  I just hope he doesn't move to Seattle, although, now that I think about Seattle, I have the feeling there are already plenty of Buddhists there.  :-)

miscommunications with the sun

I need to stop looking at the weather app on my iPhone.  First of all, the forecast is usually wrong, and second, if all is well on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here on our patio on the creek, I'm not sure that I should worry about the storm clouds and lightning-strikes showing up in the iPhone's next hour but nowhere yet in the skies.  It's like, don't relax when life is going great, because catastrophe is just about to hit you hard.

what she did and continues to do

Hey, that looks like me....!

I value loyalty more than just about anything, but I find it much easier to write about betrayal -- maybe because it gets my adrenaline going -- maybe because I try to understand why it comes so naturally for certain soulless, wretched people -- maybe because it's a juicier topic, unless of course you happen to be the betrayee...

It's been raining hard again and the creek is rushing by and the Beatles' White Album is on the turntable... "why don't we do it in the road?"...

I'll tell you why not...

the way Neil does it

I just finished reading Neil Young's memoirs, Waging Heavy Peace, which I really liked and which also led me into two directions:  first, I pulled out all of my Neil Young albums, dusted them all off and have been having a Neil Young marathon; and second, I've found myself surprisingly affected by his rambling, casual, stream-of-consciousness style of writing.... Whatever popped into his head he wrote, regardless of how it fit into his life story.

Like, for instance, I was writing an email last night to my attorney (a whole 'nother story, which I can't tell here) and realized that I was writing it in Neil Young style, which probably had her wondering when she read it  if I was smoking weed.

I've started writing my memoirs, by the way.  Everybody has a story to tell, and every story can be interesting if told right.  I'm realizing that my life story, if told from my own particularly twisted point of view, could be more entertaining than you might think.

not much has changed

The other day, somebody told me that they sort of missed my blog since I've been absent for awhile now.  And so here I am.

There are 7 billion people on earth right now, and, to motivate me, all it took was for one of them to say they missed my blog.

One reason I put off starting again was because I didn't want to have to explain where I had been or what has happened in my life since the Academy Awards.

The short answer is, nothing.  And everything.

We had a total lifestyle change, Jerry and I.  We sold our condo in downtown Minneapolis and bought a house that is just barely in the suburbs, and we somehow just love it.  The setting is peaceful and lovely, yet the city is just a few blocks away when we need it.  We have a beautiful creek running through our back yard, and we see nature close-up, sometimes too close-up, when we have geese pooping on our lawn and deer chewing on our tomato plants.

But, meanwhile, out there in the world, Iraq is blowing up;  the World Cup has soccer players biting each other;  the Tea Party is getting crazier as it disintegrates; Jersey Boys becomes a movie; etc.....  There is much to blog about beyond how my yard is looking.  Watch for me.

Who owns our back yard?

Howard ranks the Oscar nominees

The Oscars are Sunday night in L.A., where the red carpet will be soggy from torrential rains, and here is my annual ranking of the Best Picture nominees, based totally on my likes and quirks, with some amateur consideration of my humble impressions of excellent movie-making:

1)   The Wolf of Wall Street.  A wild Martin Scorcese film of greed and excess.  Because of its 500+ F-bombs and insane sexism, it has practically no chance of being named Best Picture, but, of the 9 nominated pictures, it is the Best -- the most well-done and entertaining -- anyway.  I want to see it again.
2)   American Hustle.  A fast-moving comedic story of corruption and scandal.  Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are perfect together.  This could win.
3)   Dallas Buyers Club.  Matthew McConaughey is practically unrecognizable but is also amazing as the AIDS victim who won't give up.
4)   Nebraska.   My first three picks are frenetic in pace, and Nebraska is the opposite, slow as molasses, but I loved the story, and the film nails the slow-moving feel of some of the small towns on the Great Plains.
5)   Gravity.   This film, especially if you see it in 3D, feels sort of like an IMax production without a lot of plot, but it's fun seeing all those objects, including Sandra Bullock, floating around in outer space.
6)   Philomena.   This is a fascinating true story about a woman, played by Judi Dench, searching for the son she sort-of gave up many years ago.  If you're a fan of nuns, you'd feel uncomfortable with this film.
7)   12 Years A Slave.  This is the odds-on bet to win Best Picture, but I personally found it poorly structured and overly punitive.
8)   Captain Phillips.  Of the nine nominees for Best Picture, this picture was the first to be released and the last one that I saw.  Tom Hanks is the best he has been in a while as the captain kidnapped by Somali pirates, and, as an action/suspense pic, it's pretty good, just not a Best Picture.
9)   Her.  How is it possible that this stupid movie was nominated for Best Picture, yet the real Best Picture of the year -- Inside Llewyn Davis, the latest Coen Brothers film -- was not??

My other picks:
Best Actor:  Hmmm, that's tough.  1)  Bruce Dern for Nebraska; 2)  Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club, or 3)  Leonardo Decaprio for Wolf of Wall Street.  Any of them deserve it.
Best Actress:  Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine.  No contest.
Best Director:  Martin Scorcese, of course, for Wolf of Wall Street.
Best Supporting Actor:  Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club.
Best Supporting Actress:  Sally Hawkins for Blue Jasmine.  But June Squibb in Nebraska is terrific too.

LAS to ORD to MSP

Ok, changing planes at Chicago O'Hare airport, heading back to Siberia.  But what a great break.  I wish everybody in Minnesota could get away for three days in warm temperatures and no snow.

by the time we got to phoenix

I misnamed yesterday's post.  Instead of MSP to LAS, it should have been MSP to PHX to LAS, because we had to change plans in Phoenix, Arizona.

In my usual free-ranging guilt while we were taking off from Minneapolis, I was questioning the decision to go to Vegas when there is so much work at the office and a house move coming up shortly, but by the time we got to Phoenix, where the temperatures were in the 70s, I was over that.  By the time we reached Las Vegas, I was saying "Minneapolis who?"

MSP to LAS

A brief reprieve from a punishing winter.... into the desert, the escape from reality.  Back Wednesday.

tristan & somebody

Oh there it is, I had to look it up again -- the name of the play that we went to see the other night at the Guthrie Theater -- Tristan & Yseult -- but when I Wikipedia it, Yseult comes up as Iseult or Isolde -- that's what happens when 12th Century legends evolve, names change forms.  This 21st-century variation of the story included clown-like hijinks, eclectic but good music, and general silliness wrapped around a story of kings and battles (physical and emotional) taking place in old Cornwall.

Next at the Guthrie -- Shakespeare's Othello.  I plan on reading it before then if I can and then having my friend Naomi explain it to me on the way to the theater.

we ask for so little

Me, yesterday, to a stranger in the elevator:  "It's 40 degrees outside."

The stranger:  "AWESOME, MAN!!"

the miserable people across the hall

Okay, I might be the problem.  Jon and Tom tell me that I like everybody, which to them means that I have no "standards."  And it's true that I try to be friendly to everyone, even strangers on the street.  Who knows?  They might be angels (Hebrews 13:2)!

But here is the other extreme:  a few months ago, the county opened an office on the other side of the elevators from our offices, and there just seems to be something wrong with the people who work there:  they are absolutely the unfriendliest people I have ever encountered.  Not only will they not say even a token "Hello" when they pass us in the hall, they won't even make eye contact or acknowledge our presence.

This leads me to one of the following explanations for their obvious misery:
--  They all desperately hate their jobs (and it's likely that many county employees do hate their jobs but can't leave because the benefits are good).
--  They hate each other.
--  They've been ordered to never mingle with non-county employees.  But why?

Don't get me wrong.  The phoniness of "Minnesota nice" can be pretty irritating too, but I at least don't take that personally.

the messy in-between

The remodeling of the new house continues at what seems like a snail's pace and is at a stage of looking like nothing, or at least nothing livable.  Meanwhile we sit in our condo and wait and sort of wish we could move some stuff, but no rooms in the new place are finished enough to move anything into.

the future living room

the future family room

the crashes

It's funny, watching the Olympics, how, with all the sleek beauty of the winter sports on display, what gets replayed over and over are the screw-ups -- the crashes and falls, broken bones, the tears of disappointment, and Bob Costas's eye problems.

It sorta reminds me of watching a NASCAR race, where the only moments that get replayed are the crashes.

spamming for jesus

As a technologically-challenged blogger, I've always been impressed that Google can screen and block spammers from having their "comments" show up on my posts.  Occasionally, one gets by them and I have to go in and delete a rogue comment, which, if I didn't do that, the comment would be inviting you to click on a link to a site perhaps dangerous or just plain sleazy.

The one that got by them yesterday was a Jesus spam -- a long, preachy bit of earnest silliness that included even the Ethiopian eunuch and would lead a gullible reader to another blog site (that probably asks for money at some point).  Spam evangelism -- has this replaced the loudmouth would-be preacher on a downtown soapbox?  Or how about this? -- Recently I saw a guy with Bible verses tattooed all over his arms.  Is he thinking that inking his body will inspire lost souls?

"LOL!"

Here is one of my favorites of 21st-Century evangelistic lunacy:  The Facebook friend who quotes the theoretical words of Jesus in the Book of Matthew: "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven," and then strongly suggests that if you don't "share" the post affirming that you love the heck out of Jesus right there on Facebook ("and 97% of my friends won't"), he will deny you in heaven and you are doomed for eternity.  I guess that non-Facebookers are off the hook on that one, at least.

'tonight' won't be just any night

It was partly because it came on right after the Olympics opening ceremony (which I watched part of), but the last Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show set a ratings record for that show, and next week Jimmy Fallon moves on to become the new host of The Tonight Show.  Jimmy Fallon seems like such a nice guy and is extremely talented -- he was just on too late for someone likes me who falls asleep in front of the TV way too often -- so I'm a little excited that he'll be in that earlier time slot.  Plus, he moves the show back to New York, where it belongs.

And I gotta say, the Olympics sure look good in HD.

the word is that sochi sucks

It could be that the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia has had the worst advance publicity of any Olympics, except for maybe the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.  Hotel accommodations are somewhere between non-existent and horrifying, the slopes and other venues are dangerous, athletes are getting hurt... and then there is the repressive Putin administration hosting it all.

So it will be interesting to see whether people tune in to watch or not.  As frigid as this winter has been in much of the U.S., will viewers want to see more snow and ice?

The replay of the opening ceremonies is on TV tonight -- hmmm, whether to watch, or might there be a better offer?

glued to ed sullivan

It was fifty years ago this week....

The Ed Sullivan Show was on CBS for many years, but, for baby boomers of a certain age, it was that one Sunday night in early February of 1964 that will be remembered most.  It was just two months after the assassination of President Kennedy, and it was a winter of gloom.... until word got out that a British pop group named the Beatles was going to be invading the U.S., and we would finally get to see them with our non-comprehending parents in glorious black and white on, of all places, The Ed Sullivan Show.

There was nobody who didn't watch.  There was nobody who wasn't talking about the show in school the next day -- the songs, the haircuts, which one is your favorite Beatle? --  and music would never be the same.  You know the rest of the story.  It all happened fast and seems like only, well, Yesterday.

P.S.  John was always my favorite Beatle.

they missed the thin air of mile-high stadium

Maybe they had trouble adjusting to the relatively thick, normal air of East Rutherford, New Jersey, but, whatever the reason, the favored Denver Broncos choked on something and lost Super Bowl XLVIII big-time yesterday to the Seattle Seahawks, 43-8.  Jerry and I, rooting for Seattle, enjoyed the blowout.  People who just wanted to "see a good game" didn't.

Best commercial, in my opinion:  Doritos.

no hope bowling

I'm still a little freaked out that we're moving to a suburb, even a relatively palatable suburb, and am trying to cautiously adapt to the concept of living outside the urban core.  Jerry has some pet names for some of the Minneapolis 'burbs, for example:  Eden Prairie is "Eden Scary";  Maple Grove is "Maple Grave"; New Hope is "No Hope"....

No Hope is a suburb even farther out than our soon-to-be home, and that's where we went bowling with Tom and Liz today, the New Hope Bowl, and I realized that, wherever I am -- urban, rural or suburban -- I'm a lousy bowler.  Maybe the boundaries matter less than I fear.  And maybe I should bowl more than once every three or years.  At least it would be something to do while mingling with the natives.

It wasn't long ago that people could still smoke INSIDE bowling alleys...