History in film?

It's been a while since I saw a film I felt like recommending to anyone. Partly because great films seem to be fewer and further between these days but also when a great film wins an award, it does it's own recommending and I don't feel any compunction to recommend it on my blog. But this last weekend we saw a film that captured my imagination and I decided it was worthy of a little additional publicity and since it's no longer in theaters, you can even get it from your local library (as did I) and spend your (saved) money on some lovely treats to enhance your viewing pleasure (like a bottle of champagne!... I highly recommend a bottle of Beringer White Zinfindel! It's on the sweet side as are all white Zins but it's Pink and reminds me of Cary Grant!... ahem) But back to our film...

We find ourselves swept back into time.... 391 A.D. to be exact...in Egypt.... but to be more specific: Alexandria. On a stairway of the library a woman, Hypatia, is teaching her male students about philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. They discuss and debate the knowns and vast unknowns until one student finally says, "Why do we question what the Lord himself ordains?" The question dangles and is left unanswered... at the moment. Later Hypatia herself answers as she is speaking to her friend Synesius, "You don't question what you believe, or cannot. I must." The film quickly moves on from the teachings of the teacher to the religious factions in the city which as as interrelated as the politics and religion are today. The pagans attack the christians and the christians fight back. Political lines have been drawn and the stronger group of Christians prevail with Roman backing. Later, the christians attack the jews,  but the christians are the ruling class so little justice is found when the jews ask for help when they are initially attacked, so the jews fight back.  All of this discontent causes the church's leader to cast his eye upon Hypatia. In his view she represents all that is evil among the pagans. She will not be baptized and she continues to cause unrest among the pagans. SPOILER ALERT: (The ending of the movie is coming up here) Thus it is determined that the woman will die and in ancient times, death will not come easy. Just as she is about to be stoned, however, a former slave who had also fallen in love with her suffocates her in a mercy killing so that the stones fall on an already dead body and the torture is circumvented without the torturer's knowledge (otherwise they might have come after the slave). 

Much appears to have been made of the meandering away from history on the part of the film's director Alejandro Amenabar and on this point I would like to say, "Well, duh..." Making an historically accurate film for anyone in the film industry would take... well... RESEARCH! And for those who go to a film thinking they are getting an historically accurate film? Who are you kidding? It just isn't happening! Those of you who expect historical accuracy in film are perhaps more naive than those who expect honesty in politics. But by and large this film does a great job of capturing the era if the not exact moment. There was a woman named Hypatia who lived during this period and she was killed by a christian mob at the time. She was actually drug through the street and then burned and perhaps worse by historical accounts and there was no romantic coming to the rescue slave to suffocate her and keep her from experiencing the horrible morass that was her death. No her death at the hands of the angry christian mobs was as ugly as any experienced in history- including Henry the 8th's wives!  

A forty-year-old Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia beautifully and is at least close to the ancient scholar's reported age of 45 (although she may have been as old as 65). Her character is strong and intellectual and wonders about the universe around her. As her world changes she is enthralled with how the earth revolves around the sun- sometimes closer other times further away. She is not a stereotypical female even by today's stereotypes! If Hollywood had even touched this film (and they never would have!), Hypatia would have been played by a twenty-something starlet who slept with all of her students and was finally killed by the pagans for turning Christian.There are several other historical inaccuracies which you can read about here but by and large the film's errors are far outweighed by the good. No particular group comes off in a terribly favorable light and viewers get a peak into the origins of religious animosities that continue on today. Not a politically correct film by any means, but one that shines a light into the darkness of modern film for movie lovers everywhere.

Bolder Boulder

A sunny spring day. The streets were aflurry of activity. People of all ilk have awoken from their winter blahs and are out and about.  

The Rubberband man and his bendable bones had his little assistants assisting in revealing how limber he really is. 

Musical instruments abound-- occasionally the sound that is heard is appealing and pleasant- other times? It's a lesson in what not to do on Pearl Street Mall unless you're desperately trying to drive people away. 

The Statueman shifts positions just in time to be not quite so statuesque

while the Busker enthralls with his dance of daring dos and do nots.

and the nimble hands of the musicmakers give off all the right vibes 

Just another beautiful Saturday in downtown Boulder, Colorado!

To Be Human is to be a Conversation

Andrea Rexilius debut's in the world of publishing with an amalgamation of poetry, essay, and memoir as it relates to her sister- twins with the same name who meet after a decade of life. Wading through the deep waters of knowing and not knowing, understanding and misconception, she explores the relationship that develops between the two even as they speak different languages yet sleep in the same bed, learning to read each other's thoughts before foreign words are uttered. Moving from memory to expression, the author tells us, "Our first conversation was performed by the body. An electrical charge, the light of sentences... A streak of light between our edges. It's true I could no longer say the word "I," to bear meaning. I flat-lined into "beyond the body," a darkness spreading, darkness gaining shape and I saw, the pupil of my eye forming, and then I saw her black hair."

Rexilius has presented us with a thought provoking and moving account of her awakening relationship with her (as I understand it) step-sister. Moving between genres with amazing swiftness, the reader is not jarred by the change so deftly is each section crafted. Poetry is inserted into essay and memoir as air is breathed between word. The format is body, swaying and dancing it's way through relationship. Easily read in a sitting, yet more profoundly understood if read over and over so intelligently is the text handled.*

*Disclaimer: Andrea Rexilius is a friend and former co-worker at the library. However, I would never give her a good review simply because she is a friend. If this were a poorly written book, it would behoove me to tell readers this.If, however, I were afraid our friendship would be harmed by a bad review I would simply not review her book.
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Corporate Tax Dodgers and Tax protests hosted by MoveOn.org at Meanderings of a Wandering Mind! 

Lillies of the field

 I carry my camera with me wherever I go in case there is a moment, like this one, where the day's beauty is found at my feet. Brilliant and shimmering on the path I am walking, I pause to consider how fleeting is life- both in those things beautiful and ugly and it is not something to take for granted.     

 Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen.  Keep in the sunlight.  ~Benjamin Franklin

Some of your hurts you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of grief you endured
From the evil which never arrived.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.  ~Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things"

Quotes found at: http://www.quotegarden.com/worry.html
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Also! A must read letter from the Coffee Party posted on my blog Meanderings of a Wandering Mind on the budget and the economy: "Let's get the facts about taxes and the debt"

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

Saturday dawned clear and bright. The pied piper skies beckoned us toward the great outdoors and without a second thought we loaded up in the car and headed out. We didn't have far to drive (just thirty minutes!) before we were in sight of vistas that are quite breathtaking (but then many are!)

The peaks in the distance are snow-capped but the temperatures break records. A winter with little snow leaves this semi-arid climate mostly brown when it should be greening in abundance. Fire danger is already high and a careless cigarette could result in evacuation.

I gaze out at the Flatirons, amazed at the wedge shaped features behind me. Their sharp angles in contrast to the mountains beyond. They earn their name from pioneer women who felt they resembled an upended household flatiron. (the likeness more obvious when viewed farther north in central Boulder- like in this picture)

 Consisting of a similar rock (conglomerate sandstone) as the aforementioned Red Rocks amphitheater, the uplifted earth reveals stories that are nearly 300 million years in the making: the dinosaurs that roamed here, the sealife that hatched. Tales that are written in stone and will endure longer than the humans that would come along to read the biography.

  It was a busy day on the trail- the trail abuzz with conversation and bicyclists straining. The first really warm spring day awakens the hibernating Coloradans from the winter doldrums in a wave of outdoor frenzy. And warm it was, shattering the previous high temperature by 6 degrees, topping out at 84!

click on the picture to get the effect of this panorama 

But in true Colorado fashion, the weather did an about-face as swiftly as a marching band. The next day there were snowflakes fluttering to the ground! Much needed moisture but a change so dramatic that one might be excused for fearing they'd been transported to another planet.
But that is what makes Colorado so colorful- not the green landscape as they might try to advertise- (it remains brown for most of the year except for the spring and only then if we've had enough snow) but the weather.   

Downtown

As a child, heading into The City meant shiny shoes and dress clothes

  Gazing at buildings from car windows as we drove down traffic laden streets, 

the excitement was tangible, Country mouse safe in her fishbowled car

 looking up at the city, gawking at towering windows 

that reach up into the sky.   

There is elation still as I walk the streets downtown 

staring up at buildings that angle up into the skies, 

quadrangles and triangles of brilliant blue  

  the morning is brisk and the crowds have disappeared through glass doors,
up elevators where,
in the bustle of the day's busyness, 

They Forget     

 Cerulean skies that seem to be just within reach 

  The streets, teeming with life, 

with those who are not so fortunate

who carry their life in a bag that rolls along the street for humanity to gawk at

 Who wear misfortune with the same casualness that some don their day's wardrobe

 the spectrum of the rainbow that splatters the walkways 

  "art" that amuses amidst the stone cold hardness of the streets

 peddlers who make their daily bread one sausage at a time     

and the bus/train drivers who keep the urbanites connected with home
It's all here in Downtown...

In the immortal words... (umm, okay maybe not so immortal) of Petula Clark 

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Death and Politics at the end of the world

(This is the next section of my WIP 'Death and Politics at the End of the World'. It might be helpful to know that you are entering an otherworldly realm as you journey with my character. In my last post, I was asked what genre I was writing in. My response wound up being "Genre... think magical realism meets surrealism meets Quantum Physics meets my imagination and the authors who have influenced me (including Jeanette Winterson!") things happen that are out of the extraordinary at times so be prepared!! If you need to catch up, the first part is in the tabs at the top and the parts just previous can be locater here and here!)

III. Duality

         The original bridge stretches out alongside the highway. Henry Flagler would burst the buttons of his sacque suit if he beheld the remains of his folly still in use by the state of Florida for the infrastructure of Highway One, while the skeletal remnants of the “eighth wonder of the world” point knotted knuckles at the haunted tresses of the past. The view from the Bahai Honda Bridge is stunning, exposing a wide island vista. I dissolve into the liquid looking glass

Arms fall uselessly, dead wood at my side. My body lurches, reflexively seeking to    expel,        inhale. A beam of sunlight shimmers on the surface but fades and wanes as I sink down, down…  Kick.

            KICK!

Not even a dog paddle?

My torso sways instinctively, finally propelling me slightly upward. More force in the motion hurtles me up through darkling waters. I break the surface, and gulp reviving ocean air. Where was the bridge? Need to get back… Swells lead to shallow. My unfamiliar form confuses my senses but instinct drives me to follow Mother Necessity. My fusiform trunk seems well suited to the wet wilderness I am surrounded by. Experimenting with motion, I find myself twisting into a barrel roll: an aquatic airplane in tailspin. Crying out with delight, I abandon my former instinct for survival and dive back into the depths swirling a strathspey whorl.

My aquatic dervish thrusts me amidst a pod of fellow frolickers. We fly without wings, three reels of three into thalassic wilderness, travelers following Zohar’s porpoiseful paths. Plunging, our bodies gently roll, curve up, break surface, and spin over and over in mid-air. We whistle our bliss and soar out into the deep, following a gilt-edged path to the horizon.

Pulses and clicks: “The harvest.”

“Spread out.”

“Circle.”

“Keep in contact.”

“Beware. The tiger will be hungry as well.”

I

    fall back… 

“If you won’t eat, you’ll have to go back.” A glance in my direction, invites me on, luring me toward the hunt.

“ Thanks but… no, I don’t eat anything with more scales than me. Appreciate it. Maybe another day!”

I flee toward…  

safer waters…

Didn’t I?  Glancing back, I am suddenly overwhelmed by my singularity; numbed by the vastness and profundity of the darkness below. Vertigo discombobulates, confuses, slows my flight. 

Gently sloshing waters pull me back to myself. I gaze down, taking in the expanse of the water’s surface, snatched from neutral buoyancy, my sensory perception wakes from a long slumber…  I grip the railing, anchoring myself to concrete girders, cement my feet to pavement and flex spaghetti arms, key lime Jell-o legs. Staring down, the small shoal of uniformed uniforms on the shore are more surreal than the distant clicks of Atlantis’s descendents: the insupportable specter of the beloved existence engulfed here, extinguished in the swelling tide, tows a palpable grief back into the angle of my jaw.

Fragments of phrases filter up the embankment. “Look down…”  “what the hell…” “give me…  “  “there, Ben!” Miniscule Barney Fife’s scour the waters on a quest for lares and penates, nexus of speculation and substantial. “That looks like that could be…   “ “Now go over…”  “John, lower that…”  “Take it down…” No, the gunless deputy was far more efficient than these Police Squad washouts. 

A John Wayne prototype saunters up to the edge of the nearby railing, hitches one Tony Lama on the bar and gazes down, a wee king of a wee-er kingdom. “You boys make sure you get over there by those casings…” Debris is dragged from the depths to be sorted and examined, then pitched onto a heap.  

“Found something, sir!” A wide-eyed redshirt backs away from the pile displaying his plunder. The baiting fish crowd together to confirm the significance of the find as awed as an audience over a Fourth of July fireworks display.

“Put that in an evidence bag.” (Little Caesar can’t help himself, guaranteeing the most obvious is a chain of command decision. Job altering decisions are undoubtedly left for the first year rookie or newly appointed lieutenant . . . easy marks should the politicians begin to string their bows.)

“Keep at it, men. We owe it to this family to bring her home.” 

Christ- straight out of Hollywood!  “Hello! central casting . . ?”

I turn to leave, disturbed by the smoking gun, confounded by its significance, and upset at the possibility that my instincts might have been wrong: the absurdity of reality on another plane. Time to go to Paradise and return to terra firma…

Springtime in the Rockies...

A tinge of green  spraying out in the fingertips of the trees, shoots of new grass stretching up pushing past the old: The sun is scintillating and the skies are brilliantly blue: The afternoon calls out to me whispering of long walks and sun browned skin. I grab camera and liquids and we head out...

Twenty minutes from home, lie the feet of the Rockies. Paths abound for hiker, runner, and biker alike and we choose one that faces the metropolis to the east.

Winding ever upwards, the narrow artery slices it's way up the hill, leading toward the peak and the promise of sights unseen .

Blue skies beckon...

Rambling ever upwards, the rocky path is a road less traveled for people of pavement, far (enough) from the city's turmoil. The scent of pine lightly wafts on the breeze, fresh, perfuming the air with new growth. 

Having reached the trail's top, I stand in silent awe at the beauty of nature. The Garden of Angels* stands majestically in the distance, the distinctive sandstone a reminder of earth's tumultuous past.  

The first of a multitude of days that we will spend afield, thrilling at the artistry of time and the megacosm.  

*You can see more pictures I took another day hiking at Red Rock's amphitheater- it's more familiar name- here

Writing is... easy?

The second crusader challenge has been posted and here are the guidelines: 
Write a flash fiction story (in any format) in 100 words or less, excluding the title. Begin the story with the words, “The goldfish bowl teetered” These four words will be included in the word count. 

The Writer

The goldfish bowl teeters as I lean forward to toss the page into the chasm between houses that stand back to back against the onslaught of weather. Falling back into the chair, I begin my opus -60 a fifth time. I palm the stem that sits at hand. Wine washes down a sob. Murmuring quietly "not writer. Hack!" I push myself away from the table. Catching on the corner of the chair I tip… teeter-totter… steady myself before avalanching off the balcony and tilt toward the nearby Jacuzzi, falling gracelessly into the womb warmth of the water. 

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