La Agrodolce Vita

Eric Rohmer was able to capture a kind of enjoyable listliss ennui of a summer day better than anyone else. Still from The Green Ray (1986).

When I think of an ideal summer, I think of trips, but not exciting trips. No camping trips, no road trips, no paddling down white water, no arduous hikes on hot hillsides. No, I think of the little trips to go for a dip in a cool pool on a hot day, or to pick up some fresh berries at a market. My idea of summer is a lazy breakfast on the deck, a swim in an outdoor pool, a nap in front of a fan, or a meandering bike ride under a canopy of trees, the dappled light cascading over me. Since living in Ontario, I’ve found the hum of cicadas on a hot day to be the ambient soundtrack of summer.

As a kid, summers seemed eternal. As a working adult, you realize all too quickly that your summer amounts to about ten weekends and maybe a week away somewhere. It’s so easy for those few days to be wrecked. What are the slayers of summer, the flies in the sun block, encumbrances to the enjoyment? Errands, crappy weather and ill health can all combine to kill a summer.

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Seen in July

Some kinds of encounters are better than others.

July had torrential rain, extreme heat, wildfire smoke and these entertainments.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Crave
After seeing Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, I thought it would be fun to revisit his previous version of close encounters. Close Encounters of the First Kind is a classic Spielberg film full of broken families, curious kids and inquisitive adults, along with government conspiracies and car chases. The film focuses on Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her young son Barry (Cary Guffey), who have experiences with UFOs that leave Roy and Jillian with visions of a mysterious mountain. Meanwhile, two government experts (curiously enough played by François Truffaut and a very young Bob Balaban) are chasing down connected phenomena that lead them to believe an alien race is attempting contact with humanity. The whole thing is wrapped up in human consciousness (artworks created by those who can’t get the images out of their heads), wonder (the mesmerizing special effects), and human connection (scenes of a mass gathering in India). Interestingly, Spielberg likes to recreate genuinely scientific-looking moments alongside the arts like paintings, sculpture, and music as equal explorations into the unknown. It’s not just a nostalgic trip to enjoy this older film but one that is also simply a great piece of filmmaking.

The view from the summit.

The Summit of the Gods
Netflix
A beautifully animated film of a mountaineering mystery based on a graphic novel by Jiro Taniguchi, which is based on a novel by Baku Yumemakura. The story blends the fictional with the real. A photojournalist, Makoto Fukamachi, tracks down a reclusive but talented climber, Habu Joji, who may be in possession of the camera of George Mallory. Mallory, along with Andrew Irvine, may have been the first to have reached Everest’s summit, but both disappeared and were believed to have perished during the attempt in 1924. It’s a tale of feats of daring, of man versus nature as the film attempts to capture the obsession of climbers who tackle the world’s tallest mountains. It is stunning and captivating in its beauty.

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Sit and Be Counted

Greenland sharks can live hundreds of years, presumably because they don't sit very much. Image from NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program

"Sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time linked to higher risk of cancer death"

That’s how the article on The Guardian begins. Here’s how it ends:
“There were limitations to the research, including the fact that the researchers performed a statistical analysis of an observational study, so could not prove causation.”

Everything dies. Greenland sharks, trees, and tortoises can live for hundreds of years but still shuffle off their mortal coil. Even stars die eventually. The one thing that will never die: this story that sitting for a few minutes a day will be the cause of your death.

I suppose I could do more. I could add bars in the toilet and do a few dips and pull-ups in the bathroom. I could squeeze in a few squats at the dinner table. I could forgo chairs entirely and sit, in the Japanese fashion directly upon the floor, though, that’s still sitting isn’t it? I could add weights to my knapsack to get some good old fashioned rucking in. I could ignore that brake pad squeezing awkwardly on my bike’s rear wheel rim just to have some added resistance. If I’m being honest, it wouldn’t hurt to fill my pockets with stones when I go swimming as I do tend to float a little too easily. The less said of how much more movement I should be getting while sleeping, the better.

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Seen in June

City Choir performing at Rosedale United Church

More free time has not, unfortunately led to more movies but here’s what was seen in the last 30 days.

City Choir
Rosedale United Church
There’s not much better than hearing a choir of human voices singing together in a beautiful setting on a warm June night.

I Like Me
Prime Video
This documentary about John Candy is pretty standard stuff: talking heads, archival interviews, and film clips. The problem, as Bill Murray articulated, Candy is too nice a guy to make a thrilling film about. Candy was simply a talented, amiable, family-oriented and good person, who grew up in Toronto (not far from our current home). He lost his father at a young age, which led to a lifetime of feeling responsible for all those around him. That is the suggestion here, that Candy’s anxiety, and work ethic (too many films and projects), came from the loss of his father and led to his early death from a heart issue. Too soon. We miss you John Candy.

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Second Wind

It's all relative.

I’ve been thinking about time lately. I should have “more of it” but it doesn’t feel that way. In truth you can’t have more time. Time just is. You can’t make it or reduce it. Time doesn’t care about your to do list. It happens regardless of you. We’re just observers/experiencers/voyageurs. We are in time but can’t change it yet doesn’t Einstein’s Relativity say we can all experience time differently? Or at least our perception of it. Clearly I am not a student of Einsteinian physics but I am thinking about my perception of time.

The Egyptians may have been the first to divide time into twelve. They noticed a year had twelve lunar cycles which led to twelve months, of 30 days each (they knew the year was longer than 360 days but like an eager junior designer were more keen on the integrity of it all). Wanting to divide the day into equal halves, they assigned twelve hours to daylight and twelve hours to night time. To make their system work seasonally they simply made an hour longer in the winter to accommodate longer nights rather than mess with the balance and beauty of twelve. After the French Revolution, when the French created the metric system, they even tried to change time keeping from a duodecimal (base twelve system) to a decimal system (base ten). It failed. There is only so far a salmon can swim against the current before it dies.

Did we conquer time or did time conquer us? I’m with the latter. Though I suppose with electric light we can fool ourselves into extending our waking day into the night. The solstice has just passed meaning the longest day is behind us and the days are already growing shorter. That is an odd phrase: to grow shorter. It is also cruel. It means summer begins by shrinking towards winter. Our days will contract for six months before they expand again. The Egyptians had it wrong but it was a valiant effort to bring simplicity to the complexity of time.

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Who Killed Friday

"Hey everybody, it's Friday!"

Fridays used to be fun. Fridays were indulgent. Fridays were an oasis in the desert. Fridays were something to look forward to. Fridays were a joyous sigh released by an entire city. Casual Fridays meant comfy jeans, and well-worn flannel shirts. Fridays were without ties. Fridays were without peers. Fridays had their own special kind of energy. Everyone you met felt the same relief that the weekend was upon them. Fridays had drinks on the patio. Fridays had late night movies. Fridays had raucous concerts. Fridays used to be the chocolate fudge sundaes of weekdays. Fridays used to be cool. Then I retired.

Now Fridays are just one day of seven. There is no expectation of a little bit of a “lie-in” on Saturday. Any day can have a “lie-in”. When you can do something special anytime you want, it isn’t special anymore. Friday is just one of those boxes on the calendar, hardly different from any other box anywhere else on the calendar. 

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