September 8, 2017
Dear Everyone:
I have come to the conclusion that my “artful” arrangement of small
river rocks and beach pebbles around the base of my birdfeed holder, to
keep the whole thing from blowing over in a high wind, may have been a
mistake. But that’s OK.
Mistakes are a good thing.
Someone once sneeringly accused
Thomas Edison
of “failing” to invent the
incandescent lightbulb over one hundred times.
To which Edison shot back (paraphrasing), “Nonsense!
I’ve found over one hundred ways
not to make a lightbulb.”
As for the birdfeed holder, the large paving stones that I eventually
found do a swell job, so the original rocks and pebbles are no longer
necessary. Instead they just
unnecessarily hide the metal base ring and frustrate many, many birds
and squirrels. So, earlier
this week, I pulled out all the stones and placed them in a convenient
holder for later.
I left the fallen seed, etc., as “phase one” was now completed.
Later that day, I discovered nearly two dozen
mourning doves
scarfing up all that suddenly-available birdfeed.
They were clearly delighted.
Likewise, Mr. Squirrel and Company.
And cleaning up the leftover empty shells will be much easier without
the intervening rocks, so everyone is happier now.
Meanwhile, I finished the latest incarnation of my crocheted sweater.
I’ve made this particular sweater about a half-dozen times now
and each time it gets better.
These were not mistakes, they were just repeated attempts at
“process improvement”. After
all, if everyone gave up after the first failed attempt, babies would
never learn to walk, would they?
In other news…
While everyone was watching
Hurricane
Harvey swamp Texas,
we here in California
were more or less melting in a record-breaking
heat wave.
In fact, last weekend, “Jeannie” and I decided to take in a movie
based almost entirely on the level of air-conditioning afforded by each
theater.
The temperature was around 106, so we chose to see
Wind River
for the simple reason that it takes place in
Wyoming in the dead
of winter. Lots and lots of
snow. The title comes from
the
Wind River Indian Reservation, 7th largest outdoor
ghetto in the
United States.
A Reservation,
so-called because it was “reserved” for the indigenous people herded
into it, is technically federal, even though it occupies space inside a
state or territory.
Consequently, state laws don’t apply.
When there is trouble, either the local authorities take care of
it, or they bring in federal help, usually the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Cory, played by
Jeremy Renner (The
Hurt Locker,
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters), works for the
Fish and Wildlife Service and is out tracking a mountain lion which
has killed some local livestock.
Instead he finds the body of a young woman.
He is devastated because she was a friend of his own deceased
daughter. He reports it to
Ben (Graham
Greene), the police chief who calls in the FBI.
Lots of tramping and snowmobiling through the snow and talking to
“locals” to try and figure out what happened.
There is a
drilling rig nearby.
This film is a contrived confluence of incompetency.
There are holes in the plot that you could drive a
Zamboni
through.
The Reservation is comprised of about 3400 square miles, which makes it
slightly less than three times the size of
Rhode Island,
yet it apparently has only one police chief and a few deputies.
The FBI, which has a full office less than three hours away in
Casper, Wyoming,
nevertheless opts to send out a
rookie who
happens to be attending a seminar in
Las Vegas.
What oil company would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for over a
half-dozen heavily-armed out-of-work
mercenaries, to
guard a rig that’s been completely shut down for the winter?
And, by the way, not even
British Petroleum would
be stupid enough to allow firearms on the premises of one of its
facilities. Ditto alcoholic
beverages of any sort.
The actors comport themselves well (“On the count of three, look
grief-stricken”) with what they have.
There’s a close up of a spider moving gingerly yet very quickly across a
bit of snow. Can you
imagine? “So, Mr.
Animal
Wrangler, we need your spider to scamper across the snow before Our
Hero steps over it on his way to the snowmobile.
Don’t worry, we have our
ASPCA rep right here to make sure the spider is completely safe at
all times.” And Mr. Animal
Wrangler sends his little spider out there (“You’ll be a star!”) and the
little spider is traipsing along as quickly as possible thinking, “Cold
feet! Cold feet!
Cold feet! Cold feet!
Are you sure this is how
Emma Stone got
started?”
Why is a film released in August?
Two reasons: 1)
The studio doesn’t expect it to do well, so dumps it at the end
of the summer season in hopes of recovering at least some of its costs
before word-of-mouth gets around.
2) It’s an
“independent” film that might have a ghost of a chance with the
Academy Awards
and the studio wants to get out ahead of the “big guns” in hopes of
getting some screen time while the rest of the dregs are being dumped
and there’s nothing much in the way of “Art
House” competition.
I’m thinking this one will lose on both counts.
Nevertheless, lots of snow.
And the popcorn was good, too.
Love, as always,
Pete
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