February 7, 2001
Dear Everyone:
There is something anachronistic about working on the computer by candlelight.
The California Energy Crisis (CEC) or The Energy Crunch (TEC), as the Chronicle likes to call it, continues. I keep trying to do my part by remembering to turn lights off whenever they’re not needed. Sometimes that means doubling back because the light that’s on is across the room from the door you’re leaving through. Then, of course, as you make your way through the dark room, you stub your toes on unseen things (Ouch!).
Nevertheless, conservation abides. Last night, as I watched Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, the only light on in the house was in the kitchen. The living room was illuminated only by the TV and about a dozen candles. (Can’t have too many candles when there are vampires lurking about. Also garlic, crucifixes and wolfsbane.) Normally, the bedroom would be well-lit and that TV would be tuned to BVS as well, in case I needed to get something from the bedroom and couldn’t wait for a commercial break.
Now, I’m starting to think of oil lamps as more than decorative. And there are a couple of wall sconces (candle-holders) that have been hanging out in the storage shed since I moved from Concord. They were decoratively stationed in the hallway in the old condo. Didn’t seem to be any good spot for them in the new place. Last night it occurred to me that, once divested of cobwebs and otherwise cleaned up, they could go on the wall along the stairway and do a nice job of lighting said stairs.
Next I’ll be buying a hibachi for the patio, to heat bath water. When will it all end? Hopefully, before I go too far.
In other news…
Spent last Saturday at “Jeannie’s” place, on the computer, of course, finding the best airfare from Oakland to Portland so “Jeannie” can fly up north to help Mother move into her new home at Mary’s Woods. Mother has sold, and moved out of, her house, but can’t move into her new digs until February 22nd. In the meantime, she’s ensconced in “Penny” and “Tristan’s” RV in the driveway across the street from her former house. (And I’m “complaining” about primitive living conditions?)
After locating airfare.com and determining the best departure and return times and cost, we went to a movie at the theater where “Jeannie’s” friend so generously bestowed gift tickets on me for helping with her computer. Movie for two adults cost me $0.50. Hot dogs, popcorn and soft drink came to $3.25.
As for the movie, it was Thirteen Days.
This is a movie about how Kevin Costner saved us all from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. (Some people might be inclined to argue that, as a 7-year-old in 1962, Kevin couldn’t have had much to say about the Crisis. But let’s all remember that Sir Thomas More was only seven years old when Richard III died and Henry Tudor became King Henry VII, and nearly everyone accepts More’s “account” of the History of Richard III. So there you have it: Revisionist history in a nutshell.)
Back to the movie. Apparently, a producer had suggested to a screenwriter that they do “a Titanic”. In other words, a love story set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Evidently, the producer had not seen John Goodman’s Matinee (1993), which was, in part, a love story set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The screenwriter, who may or may not have seen Matinee, suggested, “Let’s drop the love story and concentrate on the Crisis.”
This they did, with the screenwriter choosing a Presidential aide named “Kenny”, actually a composite of several people, to act as an Everyman who just happened to be inside the room when many life-threatening decisions were made. All well and good until Costner got his hands on the project and suddenly “Kenny” became a much greater role. (You can do that when you make yourself one of the producers.) In fact, “Kenny” threatens to overshadow John and Bobby Kennedy.
The actors playing the Kennedy brothers manage to hold their own. In fact, Bruce Greenwood does an excellent job as JFK, partly because he doesn’t make the mistake (as Costner did) of trying to imitate a Hyannisport accent. He’s also very good at just looking confident, tired, angry, worried and God-my-back-hurts all at the same time.
Along with Greenwood, the movie sports a surprising list of good, middle-aged, character actors that you’ve seen, but probably never noticed, in the roles of all the military types that were just aching to take on the Commies and find out if we really could blow up the world. If you like file footage of atomic testing explosions, with lots of mushroom clouds, this is your movie.
Music by
Trevor
Jones. Sometimes
Trevor’s music is the best part of a movie, as in the case of
Excalibur.
Sometimes it just elevates mushroom death-clouds above hokey.
You be the judge.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |