Revisiting my youth

I am a reluctant movie-goer at best, often waiting until a movie is released in DVD and then forgetting that I wanted to see it in the first place. Last summer, I found out how fun it was to see a packed movie with friends, loved ones, and a bunch of fans. My nephew Erik's visit to Utah coincided with the release of the last Harry Potter movie. We pre-purchased tickets and took him to the midnight showing and had a fabulous time.The anticipation of waiting hours, both outside and inside the building, the perks of many costumed fans, really cool round 3-d glasses and free food, all added to the enjoyment of the whole experience.

That being said, there are a few movies that I would endure waiting hours in line. Our family are huge Lord of the Ring fans, having seen all the movies multiple times, even ALL in one day, and having traveled to New Zealand motivated, in part, by the movie. Still we did not attend the midnight showing of the The Hobbit, and instead opted to wait until the Sunday following the movie’s release, for viewing and host a post-movie Hobbit party. This decision probably had more to do with the fact that the release was on a school night. Because we live in a community predominantly views Sunday as the Sabbath, going to an early showing  of a newly released movie is like owning your own theater.

I am an admitted and committed trekkie, and have seen almost every TV series and movie connected with this title since I was really young. As a pre-teen, I used to stay up late and watch the first series in 1980s reruns through a crack in my bedroom door. In college and beyond I watched the Shatner / Nimoy movies. Even now, I can hardly believe that the first Wrath of Khan movie is 30 years old. My children were introduced to the movies and series years ago. While they thought the original series too boring, and the Picard series boring and slow, they seemed to like the movies and had favorite characters among Spock, Kirk, and Bones, just like I did. Because of this fact, we saw Star Trek Into Darkness (STID) this weekend.

STID was a big production, in 3D, and certainly fit the bill as an action-packed adventure. The basics of the plot were no different than any of its predecessors; there is a really, really bad guy who is going to do something horrendously bad unless the crew of the Enterprise stops him, and by the way, Spock doesn’t seem to show any emotions. While strange looking aliens, and huge sets have become commonplace in movies,this movie focused on a patriotic and moral message. We were all brought to the theater to relive our feelings during the 9/11 attacks as a flying object controlled by a madman crashed into a large building in a heavily populated city. Young Kirk, fueled by righteous anger over the loss of many lives including his beloved Captain Pike requests the mission to find the bad guy. The bad guy, who it turns out is Khan, a genetically engineered superhuman from the past, hiding in enemy territory is to be executed without trial, introducing one of the many moral dilemmas to the movie.


On the lighter side, there quite a few nods to the old series in this new movie. In this way, trekkies like me had the satisfaction of connecting with feelings from their younger selves. Not that there weren’t inconsistencies. Khan, played by the brilliantly talented Benedict Cumberbatch from the BBC's Sherlock series, changed the character both ethnically and personally. He reinforced the movie stereotypical bad guy with a British accent, but he could have been so much more than a madman with weapons. As the stronger, smarter adversary, he should have been allowed to trick the good guys before they outsmarted him.

This being said, for trekkies, the Star Trek series is about the relationships of the characters that we've grown-up and not the intellect and plot twists that make many movies worth seeing. The movie explored the Kirk / Spock and the Spock / Uhura relationships, while leaving most other characters underdeveloped such as the antagonism between Spock and McCoy. Scotty played a surprisingly important role off-ship leaving one to wonder how he maneuvered a ride on the Admiral's secret ship, USS Vengeance. Finally, Sulu and Chekov were just too young to be believable. But then again, all the actors are much younger than I am, so from that perspective I might be the flawed aging audience.Overall, I really enjoyed spending a couple of hours in a dark theater with my favorite fictional people from my youth.

Ode to a Skywhale

(photo credit The Canberra Times)

 

As the sunset melts behind the distant hills, the first flight of Skywhale across the countryside of Canberra comes to a close. Suspended, floating a short distance above the ground, she hovers with a satisfied all-knowing grin across her wide chin. Huge udders adorn her head like curled locks of hair framing her face. She is a creature borne of evolution of the mind, no longer held back by the water and land that once contained her. Wings would only hinder her flight as she flows gently over the land. Ephemeral, she floats above the earth for all to see and admire her essence and experience.

So many things in life are borne of experience, why not a skywhale? She comes from the mind of an artist, carefully rendered on paper, filled with air and dreams. Does the flight of only a day, or even an hour make her any less real? Life should not be measured by duration but by immersion. The sun fades at the close of each day, even as actions remain fresh in our minds long after the last light fades. Likewise, skywhale’s flight continues long after the air has left her silk-like skin.

Skywhale’s journey evokes the phrase “flight of fancy” as it seems to express more about the creative mind than the physical world. And yet, we do not have a phrase for the evolution from mind to physical form. Create seems too small for a being of such immense size and presence. Likewise, neither fantasy, dependent on disbelief, nor imagination, an internal image of the minds creation, are adequate descriptions for this fully evolved form. She, like her image, requires new parameters of the creative process to help ground her birth and being. The fact of her existence makes her much more than fancy.

Even as she smiles, it seems that Skywhale would be a lonely Cetacea, having left the water and all her friends behind to take flight. Would that her mournful song could carry across the lands, singing of the time when her strings would be cut and she would simply float away high into the heavens.

Festival of the Cats

While trolling for interesting news stories, I happened to find a reference to Kattenstoet,  “festival of the cats,” which is held triennually on the second Sunday of May in Ypres, Belgium. The last festival was celebrated in 2012.

I was drawn to the festival by the photo above featuring a giant cat / woman that would put the Macy’s parade balloons to shame. She was led around the town, over the uneven cobblestone streets, by a band of mice / children.  Her size, as she dwarfed the old buildings along the parade route, gave her the perfect vantage point for peeking into even highest second floor window.

One of the many curious elements of the festival is that it only occurs once every three years. A Belgian website dedicated to the event provided more insight into the festival. There have been 43 festivals held to-date with the first occurring in 1955. The festival includes floats, giants, bands, theatre, and dance groups. It is said to feature“evocations of the cat throughout history, the cat in language and legend, the cat around the world.” And, it is the only festival of its kind that I can find reference to on the internet.

Lacking details, I turned to Patrick Robert’s blog Purr ‘n’ Fur more pictures and complete history of the festival.  Ypres was said to have a booming wool trade, with the wool stored in a town building called Cloth Hall. Cats were used to keep rodents away from the wool, until it could be sold. When spring came and the cats were no longer needed, they were thrown off the tower by the town jester. The town was said to end this inhumane practice in 1817, and now holds the festival to celebrate the cats and their history.  

I was surprised to learn that the large white female cat in the parade is named Minneke Poes. She was married to Cieper, “King of the Cats” (black cat below), in 1971. They have a “baby Pieperke” born in 1983, who does not regularly appear in the parades. Apparently the festival is continuing to create its own lore and history to grow the tale of the cats.

Reading about this cat festival made me wonder if was unusual, or if there were more cat festivals throughout the world that I was missing out on. A brief search of the internet produced two recently developed festivals dedicated to cat videos in Oakland and Minneapolis. Fresh Step cat litter also sponsors the “Catdance” film festival annually. I was excited to find out about the C.A.T.S festival in San Antonio, Texas, until I learned that the acronym stood for Cigar Aficionados Trades and Sale.

Finding my search fairly fruitless, I returning to the Purr ‘n’ Fur blog and found more creative cat-options. In Catskill, New York, the Cat’n Around exhibition features larger-than-life decorated cat busts throughout town. There is also a “The Moon Cat” in the town of Lloret de Mar, a writing contest sponsored by the international Cat Writer’ Association, and a cat collector’s convention held annual in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Given my folklore interest in Oscar, the therapy cat who predicted deaths in nursing homes with uncanny accuracy, maybe some additional research in this topic is merited at a later date. I’ll be sure to mark date 10 May 2015 of the next festival of cats in Belgium on my calendar today.

Minivans

On a recent drive home from school, Ben and I talked about his day. Since he had taken a field trip to a nearby hiking trail, I asked how he had gotten there.  He said in someone’s van, and began listing the people who owned vans. The discussion turned to the difference between vans, and how to know when something was a minivan. I explained that most family-owned vans were minivans, but if the van held more than seven people, it was probably a passenger van. To bring the point home I explained that Hana’s friend’s family drove a passenger van because they had a family with five or more kids.

After an exclamation of wonder at anyone having lots of kids he wanted to know why a family would have so many kids when, in his opinion, two kids were the perfect number, and were all that was needed.  I reminded him that many families had more than two kids, and in fact if his grandfather Paul (twelfth of thirteen), or his dad (fifth of five) had parents that felt this way, he wouldn't have been born. Furthermore, many religions don’t approve of birth control and hold larger families in high regard.

To this he asked “what is birth control.” I reminded him that we had talked about sex and how babies were made by a sperm from a male coming together with an egg from a female in the past. Then added that birth control took many forms but was often men wore a balloon called a condom over their penis to trap the sperm, as well as protect them from sexually transmitted diseases. 

After an acknowledgement that this sounded familiar, he asked so how many times did you and dad “do it” to have Hana and me, quickly adding that he thought that  no more than two times would have been necessary.  Surprised by the directness of his question, I paused before replying gently that this was not an appropriate question to ask anyone, even your own parent.  I quickly added that there are many reasons people would choose to have sex, some of which in addition to having babies involved love and recreation.  He then apologized, embarrassed for asking something he shouldn't have. On the whole, he found the whole subject to be gross, starting with kissing, which is fine for now.

It is funny to think about how much of my relationship with Ben is bound to the subject of vans.  My dad died right before Ben turned two years old and I was in a bit of a fog for at least the first year or two afterwards overwhelmed with the task of moving and caring for my mother. Ben’s delayed language skills limited his ability to express his needs and added to his frustration and mine. During that time, we bonded by finding things we could do together without language. Since I was obsessed with fitting my newly enlarged family into one vehicle and he loved minivans, we began test driving them together. I can only ponder how this this subject will continue to bring us together in the future.