Ski Basin Hike

My hiking group climbed up the ski basin today, and had this view at our back. The view from the top of the trail, Gayway, is mind-numbingly beautiful.

Good conversation today too as I met an Astronomy Ph.D. who works at the Lab. It was fun to delve back into my SJC junior and (mostly) senior year mathematics and lab to talk through some of the major issues in his field.

Otherwise this weekend I've been working through a little Joseph Campbell, a little of Ted Connover's book New Jack wherein he takes the job as a New York State Corrections Officer and writes about his experience.

I caught Happy-Go-Lucky this weekend, which was a really wonderful movie I highly recommened. I hadn't ever seen anything by Mike Leigh, but now I'm a fan. Apparently he never has a very firmly written screenplay, but rather a lose idea of what he wants to do, then lets his actors/actresses improvise. I'm excited to see more of his work.

Dow 7000 this week? There is a good chance. After that point though, we should be ok for a few months.

Thanks for checking in.

Defending a foolishness?

I've always liked the movie Armageddon a great deal. My intellectual friends and others who appreciate good 'film' have always given me grief over this.

Transformers was just on, and it dawned on me why I like both movies so much: I'm an eternal optimist. I sincerely believe in the potential of individuals, and even in the potential of the human race. These moves awaken those feelings in me. I want to believe that if there were an impending catastrophe which could end humanity, that we would be capable of making the hard choices, and working together to accomplish something.

And when we eventually interact with other races in this galaxy, I want to believe we would represent ourselves well, and that we would be admired by these others.

While I'm sure there are better instances which explore these ideas, these movies really hit that nerve for me. That's also why I like Science-Fiction in general, and Nietzsche as my favorite philosopher. Optimists all, and if you don't see it, look more closely.

Some scattered bits and pieces:

--Markets
--The Wire Season 5
--The Filthy Critic
--New Bond Film, The Quantum of Solace (Casino Royale and After the Wedding)
--The Ekhert Tolle Group
--Salmon Rushdie book for next month.
--hiking group from meet.com


--Today was an early one taking the dogs in for their shampoo.

So I headed over to the office to watch the markets. Anyone wondering about markets today would see them drop and then drop suddenly and violently, which happened because the most recent bottoms of both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were breached. I think a lot of folks stood transfixed watching the Dow to see if it would break below 7882, which was it's intraday bottom back on Oct. 10th. Then the markets rallied violently, to finish the day up almost 600. What was the cause of that? Short-covering. Almost entirely short covering and those trying to capitalize on a violent short-covering rally like that, because everyone knows that the G20 is meeting in Washington tomorrow, and traders playing the market short don't like leaving themselves exposed to events, just in case a plan comes out which could cause optimism in the markets. Technically, the breaching of the S&P and the Nasdaq, but not the Dow, means we'll be heading further lower from where we perhaps we'll have a couple days, then we're off to the races again down. At least, that's what people far smarter than I am think will happen.

--Tonight I got my, The Wire Season 5 DVDs from Amazon. In case anyone hasn't ever seen this show or heard about it, I have to plug it here in a few words. This series is written by some Baltimore insiders who actually saw how the city works, how the police department works, how the drug trade functions, and many of the other pressures besides. Basically, this TV series is about the war on drugs, but shows it from all sides. How has the war on drugs affected the police, the gangsters, the cities, the schools, etc. The best written show that has been on TV recently. Not for the faint of heart, however, there is lots of violence if that matters to you.

--While I'm on the crass line, I'll also throw out another favorite of mine: www.bigempire.com/filthy/ that website belongs to the Filthy Critic, who is a mostly underground movie critic who has been writing for years. His pet peave is the terrible storytelling which is becoming so popular in Hollywood. As his name suggests, he's no stranger to profanity. His reviews, however, are hilarious. He has a very large archive that he has been adding to for years. For a good laugh, check out his review of Driven.

--Tonight I'm going to head over to see the 12:01am showing of The Quantum of Solace, the new Bond film. I really enjoyed the last one, Casino Royale. I think going back to the beginning of the Bond series and showing how Bond became the Bond we came to know through the previous actors that have played the role by taking a new actor in Daniel Craig, and showing him as a very bright, capable guy, but very rough around the edges, who goes about solving his problems without any grace was a great stylistic choice for the series. Also from Casino Royale, a plug for another film that the bad guy from that film, Mads Mikkelsen, did recently. The movie is called After the Wedding. It's done by Susan Bier, who is a wonderful Danish film maker who has done some other power films as well. After the Wedding was one of the nominees for best foreign language oscar a few years ago, and is one of the best films I've seen over the past few years.

--So the Ekhert Tolle group was a good one last night. The interesting thing about the first few chapters of his book are how much they remind me of Dan Millman's book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which I read when I was 16 or so. Lots of encouragement to stop thinking. By that, I mean, allowing the mind to rest, attempting to keep oneself in the present. Watching the thoughts that the mind does have. There's more of course, but I'll be wading into his book further and trying this group out at least once more.

--Another book group I've looked at is reading something by Salmon Rushdie next month, so I think I may join in on that one.

--Sunday the first hike with the active hiking group here in town.

So there are a few scattered thoughts for today.

Day 2, a small adventure, and an observation or two:

A Couple of Pics as I stepped out the door today before heading into town. Wow, ski season is close enough to taste.

This one will be a little setup of my day, then the very simple adventures of Braiden, Stacia, and Tim, and then afterwards a few thoughts about a couple of movies I've seen lately and a note or two about the book trilogy I finished recently.

--Movies:

Hellboy 2 (for any who don't know, the brilliant Spanish Director who did Pan's Labyrinth did this movie, so it wasn't entirely full of Hollywood schmaltz.)

The Bourne Ultimatum (revisiting a few inconsistencies and thoughts about visual storytelling that occured to me while watching this recently.)

W, Oliver Stone's new-ish movie about our waning president.

--Books:

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman (The Golden Compass/Northern Lights[British version], The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.) The author of these books based them on Milton's Paradise Lost, and touches upon Quantum Physics, Dark Matter, and other scientific esoterica.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, I'll explain why I'm reading this below.

Today was a great day. Up in the morning with the dogs (I watch two Jack Russells, part of the year, named P.D. and Henry), following the markets--as I spend part of each day--and thinking through the deliberately created obfuscation that leads to power in our society. I think of those things lately partially due to the times, and partially due to a screenplay that a friend and I have dreamed up, and is currently second or third on my list behind finishing a short film I'm working on, and going back and revising the first screenplay that a different friend and I created some 6 or 7 years ago now.

The day really got off to an exciting start after a new friend cancelled on me for tea, but another new friend of mine, Stacia (pronounced stay-sha), changed her status on Facebook to say that her car was in the shop, and would any of her friends be up for chauffering she and her 7 going on 8-month old baby around because they were both going a little stir-crazy in the house.

Having just finished Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy last night, I thought it would be a great idea to head off to spend the afternoon with Stacia and her son, Braiden.

So we went to a local place called The Tea House where I like to spend some time now and then lost in thought or in conversations over tea. It was fun having Braiden there with us, as he requires lots of attention, but also is easily the happiest baby and the most aware baby I can ever remember being around. So we had fun right up until the last few ounces of Stacia's coffee thing went over the table and parts of all three of us.

Next was a trip around Borders where Braiden checked out some books and stuffed animals, and Stacia and I chatted a little in between entertaining the little guy. I really had a great time today with those two, having new experiences I wouldn't otherwise have had, and enjoying both of their company a great deal.

So movies:

Hellboy 2--I thought this one was a bit fun. Lots of the trademark visuals that Guillermo del Toro is know for from Pan's, which is to say lots of scary looking creatures, and a dark fairytale sort of mythology peaking out from behind the scenes. I thought the opening was pretty strong, and some of the early transitions moved very smoothly, and with an interesting pace, before the story seemed to be forced a little. While the Hellboy character is interesting for being so obviously inhuman, and yet acting more like a human than nearly all around him, for me parts of this story seemed to force parallels and belabor this point. It seemed like the story was sculpted away from the hands of the writer/director, and leads me to believe that the producers opted for the advice of screening groups, and studio input rather than remaining true to the story. So often money destroys story in this country.

Bourne Ultimatum--While I still think the books are better (can anyone think of an instance when the movie is ever better than the books?), and of the movies the first to me still seems to be the best, I enjoyed my first viewing of this movie in the theater ages ago. I just stuck the DVD in here at the house a couple of days ago, and found it frustrating that again character consistency is sacrificed for the sake of a gag, in this case. The gag from the second movie of Bourne on the roof while talking to Joan Allen's character, telling her that the woman Bourne wants to see is standing right beside her, was insanely clever, and perhaps something Bourne would have done. Although, his character seems to avoid drawing too much attention to himself unless it's for the sake of an objective. So maybe in that case, Bourne is using fear or something. But then the second time that gag is used is to conclude the movie, which has a sort of musical satisfaction to it strictly in the confines of that movie. But as the third movie would show, it was just a case of the director going back to the well, and congratulating himself for his own cleverness. So when this gag is used a third time, now in the third movie when Bourne tells the bad guy he's in his office, there is really no reason that his character would have done that. It obviously put him into immediate danger, which is something Bourne would not have done. Purely for the sake of the movie and fast paced action. Sigh.

W--I saw this over the past weekend, and really enjoyed it. I was telling my mom that it remined me of another of Oliver Stone's movies, The Doors, which was a favorite of mine in high school. It remined me of that other movie because Stone used a similar narative structure in some ways, jumping about in time, and bringing out similar tensions between W and his Dad, and the some of the subtext of the tension Morrison always seemed to experience with his own father and what he represented. It should be noted that I'm not making any direct analogy of the sort a=b here, but rather that there was a similarity of style that Stone was certainly aware of.

Books:

His Dark Materials--I absolutely recommend these books for just about anyone to read, as there are so many interesting things going on in these books. If you're not sure if you want to spend the time on them, check out the movie The Golden Compass for a little peak at some of the ideas the books take up. Milton's Paradise Lost was a big inspiration for Pullman, as was some very deep consideration of comparative religion and the consequences of some of the thoughts from Paradise. Some of the spiritual thoughts about the Daemons sparked some really interesting thoughts for me. Also taken up in part is Quantum physics, and the possible consequences of the many worlds theory, as well as one explanation for Dark Matter, and then ties all of these ideas together in a very interesting way. Plus the books were designed as children, or young adult stories, so they read really fast, and are really easy to follow. Plus, the main character is great friends with a sentient polar bear. I don't care who you are, that's pretty damned cool. But lest anyone think these books are beneath them, the final book in the series took home the prestigious Whitbread award, which is basically the book of the year award in England. So there is some real quality there.

Finally, The Power of Now--Someone I met the other day was telling me about the site http://www.meetup.com/ which I had never heard of before this past Sunday. So I was poking around that site the day before last, and found a group which is going to be reading Tolle's book, and decided since it was sitting around on my shelf--given to me by an aquaintance years ago--I might as well read it with a group of strangers here in Santa Fe, which by reputation is very new age oriented. So I've started into it tonight, to find lots of familiar notions which seem to be very hip in the spiritual world right now about the power of attraction, and some buddhist notions one can even pick up in a quick read of Siddhartha. Although I did find a gross misunderstanding of Nietzsche to make one of his points, so I'm at least a little skeptical going into the next 20 pages or so before my first group meeting tomorrow night.

So that's quite enough for today.

First Post--Purpose of this blog:

The title of this blog comes from a favorite passage of mine in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

"I am a railing alongside the torrent; whoever is able to grasp me may grasp me! Your crutch, however, I am not."

This quote is strangely appropriate for where I find myself today.

I am in Santa Fe living in a dream world. I don't have to work. I can, for the first time I've allowed myself to, do whatever it is that I want to do.

I choose to write and to begin making moving pictures. Along with these--to keep a balance--I'm working out regularly (and skiing in the winter: Just got my season pass!), studying the art of storytelling, undertaking a little meditation and spiritual exploration, and some hiking with trips around this state to explore.

So this blog is a place for scattered thoughts, for reflections, and for sporadic photos.

Transformation is coming for me in very short order, as I consciously and unconsciously move from this version of myself to something different, something other, something dreamed of, something even perhaps feared a little. Time to become what I want to become, and decide afterwards whether it suits me or not.

I have lots of time on my hands, so I'll probably add to this regularly. Thanks for reading.