Mutiny on the Bounty

I used to soak in old movies like a sponge. The elderly who come to the library are often surprised when I rave about how much I love Grace Kelly (so beautiful and stylish!) or Carole Lombard (so funny!). Thinking perhaps that I am mocking, a suspicious eye might be cast but then I will mention another film and we'll ramble for a bit (Oh, did you see Audrey Hepburn in 'Wait until Dark' So brilliant!) about other great movies until they leave feeling that they have met a friend along the way (I hope, anyway). Anyhow, my favorite oldies channel, AMC no longer really shows old movies they way they used to (although they do show 'Madmen' and 'The Walking Dead' so I'll forgive them) so now we often dig them up at the library. Tonight, Mo chose Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando. I usually can't really watch Marlon Brando without thinking of Sayonara which is my favorite of his but I overcame that tonight and allowed him to be the dashing master's mate on the seafaring Bounty on it's way to get breadfruit plants. They were travelling to Tahiti so they could transplant the plants then transport them to the West Indies where they would be grown and harvested for cheap food for slaves. A noble mission, aye? Anyway, according to the movie and legend (which by the way is based on a true story although whether the captain was as terrible as he was made out to be is still under debate), the ship's captain Bligh was so cruel that the men rose up in mutiny and cast him off the ship to finally paddle his way back to England while the mutineers...??? Well, I will leave that for you to find out. 

The movie is a sweeping adventure in true old Hollywood style. Brando is picture perfect, handsome and debonair. He argues for the dignity of the underlings on his ship in a way that makes you hope that he's on your side when your boss acting the overlord. (He'd be out there with OWS if you ask me!) He falls in love with a beautiful Tahitian princess, which is predictable but sweet when she hangs in there with him after he loses the will to live post-mutiny and feels the full weight of what he has done (no one does depressed like Brando). Anyway, it was yet another great old film, complete with orchestrated Overture and Intermission (I can't imagine audiences today sitting still while there is a screen with a simple message "Overture" and 4 minutes of orchestration goes on. Imagine the din of talking!) with beautiful scenery and an epic story. A great way to spend a cold wintry evening (and it's definitely wintry here. We had at least 3 inches of snow Wednesday night- I think it was more and I was the one scraping the car this morning. ARGH! I'm not ready for winter yet!!!!!) 

Memorable quote: "I believe I did what honour dictated and that belief sustains me, except for a slight desire to be dead which I'm sure will pass."

Walking on Cobblestones

This is the opening paragraph to a WIP that I am playing around with. I am not sure if it will go anywhere: maybe it will... maybe it won't. The Main Character is an archaeologist who is in search of her holy grail and winds up with less than she hoped for. Unfortunately her hopes make her blind to the facts and the maneuverings that follow leads her on a winding road through political intrigue and religious squabbles.

For starters: What do you think of the title? The character: Love her? hate her? Is she sympathetic sounding? Intriguing?
As always: The characters and events in this post and all connected posts are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. 


Gleaming white against a backdrop of cerulean sky, she ascends amidst the rock and clay, angel of light rising up in an intangible dusk that has followed her halfway around the world. She stretches her arms outward as though to take in the broken and shattered, hands aching palpably. Involuntarily, she rubs the hollowed center of her hand, sensing the inarticulated connection. She stares into the clouds, heart aching for the brokenness she senses crying out in the darkness. She looks up, her mute supplications carried up on the wings of the wind as it whips up and over the rock, lifting her scarf vertically out from unyielding shoulders, a semaphore for change in the days ahead. Oblivious to the gales that assault and batter, she is statuesque, patiently awaiting the days ahead. Gray pillows boil toward her on the desert’s horizon, hungrily swallowing all that is in their path. The laying out of battle plans: gathering of forces, placement of reinforcements, lines being laid for attack are in full operation by the forces that will bombard are all that concerns her. Alliances have been made, the enemies of her enemies moving together, whispering conspiracy that her eavesdropping ears picked up in the halls she once dominated. Impending attacks from distant shores are what she deliberates and prepares for, knowing they will attempt to assail her position so she will be vulnerable to a full on assault with the final aim of making her their inverted Hypatia. Her arms raise involuntarily once more, vulnerability in gesture and frame, yielding to heaven as gracefully as Henry the Eighth’s second wife.

Tongues of gold

If you look at my header, a sliver of gold laps toward the heavens between the evergreen on the mountains in the background. They are the same type of tree as in the foreground... the Aspen. The Aspen is tasked with filling in the woods of Colorado after they have been ravaged with bark beetle (and thus cut down) or fire. They are known for their rapid growth and long lives and of course their beautiful yellow and golden leaves in the fall which is even more pronounced when it is framed by the brilliant green of the Colorado Blue Spruce.

Their silver trunks are stuff of legend for it is only with the stake of an aspen that it was believed you could kill a vampire or a werewolf. A bigger stake could be used to drive into the grave of a condemned person to keep them from rising from the dead.   

It was purported to be a tree that could ward off evil spirits which is why it was often planted near dwellings. The small heart shape leaves shiver melodically in the wind and it's no wonder that in Eastern Slavic Apocryphal literature that a legend sprung up that it was in an Aspen that Judas Iscariot hung himself and the leaves have trembled with fear ever since.*

Golden and beautiful against the azure blur skies, the Aspen is the perfect tree for the Halloween season!

*Legend: Wikipedia link

A week at a glance

Monday: Pick up and find the loose ends, a frazzled rope that has varying frayed pieces that are always roughest at first. Rushing to reconnect with friends, the disequilibrium that comes with the shifting ground, he's there and not there, off before the echoes in the house have receded.

Tuesday: Craziness of spinning wheels, the rising sun and we are in motion. The unraveled ends feel less bristly. Talking through afternoon and the drive-by taxi service that gets him home & me back to work, then evening, dinner, won't be home till long after the sun's tucked into bed. Goodnight son.

Wednesday: Wheels set in motion at the rising sun. Again. Rushing, dashing, we're late! Traffic terrible, neverending stream of disruption. Late, hurry. You could... I can't. Why don't you just... I'm driving! Can't wait till I can. I can! Drop off. Go, go, go. Turn and head off without looking back. It's Already! Wednesday.

Thursday: Rolling again. Out the door with the same urgency as on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, tousled edges are feeling irksome. Catch up on Friday. Less work today! Deep breath, breathe. Thursday...

Friday: Spinning wheel that never slows, takes us out the door. Again. Rolling down the road, chatting between the chirps of incoming text message, the shredded ends of my cable keeps me moving, keeps us going. Asthma. Homework. Headaches. Sleepover tonight? His life flashes before my eyes: Babyhood, little boy, young man... Sure.

Saturday:  Moving before there is time to think. Rolling into the day... Can I help you at all? (See blog entry)

Sunday: Too late to pull together the loose ends, it's time to gather up what is left of the unfinished ends and let it go. Too late to undo and smooth, pull in, tighten up or bind loose ends. Too late. Clean up, gather up, finish up.

Monday: Rolling out the door, catching the spinning wheel that sets us back in motion in our separate spinning wheels. I love you. Love you too. See you next week. Next time...when I'll pick up that frayed rope again, determined to do better, smooth the ends, undo the parts that are done wrong, and rewrap the parts that need redone. Next time, when there is...

More time...

(Ha! Just made it for my Monday post!!!!)