Black Soul

Black Soul is an award-winning 2002 animated short film about "defining moments of Black history". The music is fun. The film, even as short as it is, does do a good job of broadly covering the history.

The Mother Hunt

The Mother Hunt is a 1963 Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout.

from the back of the book:

When an abandoned baby is left on her doorstep, the young socialite widow knows only too well the identity of the father: her deceased philanderer of a husband. But who is the mother? The case seems like child's play to Wolfe, until the first dead body. While the police nurse their grudges against him, and the widow nurses Archie, the genius sleuth and his sidekick look for the hand that rocked the cradle. But nothing can pacify the killer, who's found the formula for murder -and is determined to milk it for all it's worth....

The story takes place in June.

It was adapted for television, and Carrie Fisher has a small role.

Red Cliff

Red Cliff is a Chinese film from 2008-2009 which tells the story of the epic battle that ended the Han dynasty. Stunning. It's long at 288 minutes (almost 5 hours in all), but it's gorgeous to watch. The version we saw was divided into two parts on separate discs, so there was a natural intermission.

trailer:

The Guardian concludes, "you can't really beat Red Cliff as the classiest and most fabulous blockbuster of the summer". Empire Online gives it 4 out of 5 stars and calls it "the best thing John Woo has made in years". The Hollywood Reporter reviews the two parts separately part 2 here.

Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 90%.

The Brooks Art Museum

Wednesday is Free Day at the Memphis Brooks Art Museum, so day before yesterday I spent the morning there. I've been going to this museum since my mother took me when I was a child, and it just never gets old. My favorite pieces are still on display:

Marisol's The Family (1969):

and Light of the Incarnation (1888):

I walked through all the galleries, feeling like I was visiting with old friends. There was an unusual temporary exhibit. This "sound-based kinetic sculpture by the late artist and musician Terry Adkins (American, 1953 - 2014) ... creates a syncopated interplay between artworks in our collection":

It makes an intriguing addition to the gallery.

The museum is set in a large park, and it was a beautiful day to enjoy sitting outside on a bench after my time in the galleries.

Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond is a 2016 science fiction film, the third film in the reboot series starring John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, and Anton Yelchin as alternate universe original series Enterprise crew. Idris Elba is the villain. These are great fun if you can get past the fact that this isn't the original series. This is not the Star Trek universe of my youth.

trailer:

Rolling Stone has a positive review. Empire Online says it is "A return to fun, and a return to form for the new version of the old Trek." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 85%.

The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman

The Sandman is a dark fantasy award-winning "comic book" series by Neil Gaiman. I've read this series three times and can highly recommend them. They are powerful works, both in character, in plot, in art.... There are photos of the art work online (Google image search results here).

The Wikipedia summary:

The Sandman's main character is Dream, the titular Sandman, also known to various characters throughout the series as Morpheus, Oneiros, the Shaper, the Shaper of Form, Lord of the Dreaming, the Dream King, Dream-Sneak, the Cat of Dreams, Murphy, Kai'ckul and Lord L'Zoril, who is the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. At the start of the series, Morpheus is captured by an occult ritual and held prisoner for 70 years. Morpheus escapes in the modern day and, after avenging himself upon his captors, sets about rebuilding his kingdom, which has fallen into disrepair in his absence.[54] The character's initial haughty and often cruel manner begins to soften after his years of imprisonment at the start of the series, but the challenge of undoing past sins and changing old ways is an enormous one for a being who has been set in his ways for billions of years.[55] In its beginnings, the series is a very dark horror comic. Later, the series evolves into an elaborate fantasy series, incorporating elements of classical and contemporary mythology, ultimately placing its protagonist in the role of a tragic hero.

The storylines primarily take place in the Dreaming, Morpheus's realm, and the waking world, with occasional visits to other domains, such as Hell, Faerie, Asgard, and the domains of the other Endless. Many use the contemporary United States of America and the United Kingdom as a backdrop.

When I read this the first time several years ago I had never read anything like it before -no graphic novels, no comic books- and I love these. You won't regret giving them a chance.

Alice in Wonderland (1949)

Alice in Wonderland is a 1949 film based on the well-known book. Carol Marsh is Alice. Watch it online in 2 parts via DailyMotion:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Senses of Cinema opens with this:

Of all the films to have faced censorship battles in the English-speaking world, there are few as apparently innocuous as Alice au Pays des Merveilles (Alice in Wonderland, Lou Bunin, Dallas Bower and Marc Maurette, 1949). An often-overlooked adaptation of the beloved Lewis Carroll novel, the 1949 film was the first screen incarnation of the story to make substantial use of animation. Its troubled production history offers a textbook example of how the state and the commercial sector can each work to crush artistic endeavours.

TCM has information.

The Mad Hatter's tea party starts here:

Please share a post with a drink reference and join us at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's weekly T party.

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I need advice on watercolors: I don't get good color from the little school watercolor sets I've been using. Can y'all suggest watercolors that give richer color that don't require a rich budget? Maybe a middle-of-the-road option? Thanks!

My ATCs for today:

Abstract:

Door:

Pink:

Pink and Purple:

Rubbing:

Birds:

Horizon:

Use 1/3 or less of the card:

Birds and Bees:

Transport:

Memphis:

Scenes of Passion and Despair

Scenes of Passion and Despair is a 1972 short story from the collection Marriages and Infidelities by Joyce Carol Oates. You can read it online here. It begins,

Walking quickly. The path become mud. She walked in the weeds at the edge of the path — then, her good luck, some planks had been put down in the mud, for cattle to walk on. She walked on the planks.

A hill leading down to the river, bumpy and desolate. Ragged weeds, bushes, piles of debris. No DUMPING ALLOWED. The Hudson River: she stared at the wild gray water and its shapelessness. Familiar sight. She’d been seeing it from this path, hurrying along this path, for weeks. Weeks? It was only the end of June and it seemed to her the summer had lasted years already. How to survive the summer?

Bloody New Year

Bloody New Year is a 1987 British horror film about a group of teenagers trapped in a haunted hotel on an island where it's always New Year's Eve, 1959. I avoid anything related to time travel, time warps, etc. For that and other reasons this is not my thing at all. And it makes no sense, or at least it didn't to me before I gave up on it and left it unfinished.

HorrorNews.net says, "Yes, it is a real mind f*ck at times and some of the scenes are cheesy as hell ... but it is definitely worth a look if you are wanting to see something a little different." Classic-Horror.com calls it, "a modest but entertaining melding of slasher films and more traditional haunted house yarns." Rotten Tomatoes doesn't have a critics rating, and the audience score is 29%.

The Summer Patio

Every year I want to change up my patio a bit, and every year I can't figure out what that would look like. This year The Husband painted the chairs, and I added a redbud tree. Other than that, it's much the same.

It's an enjoyable place for a morning cuppa

and I sometimes even eat lunch out there.

I've had to take down the platform feeder, because the squirrels finally discovered it. Right now I'm providing a waste-free seed, fruit, and nut mix in the hopper feeder and shelled peanuts in that screened tube feeder:

There's sugar water for the hummingbirds and purple finches, and there are mealworms:

The lavender has started blooming:

including the lavender I rooted this spring:

The honeysuckle is blooming better than it ever has:

which brings me joy.

The daylilies are from Mother's, and I remember them being in both front and back yards when I was growing up:

All in all I find it a delightful spot. It's manageable, and it gives me a place for my potted plants to spread out in good weather. I do wish I knew what I wanted to change. Coz I have a yen to re-arrange. Or add. Or something...

The House Surgeon

photo from Wikipedia

The House Surgeon is a Rudyard Kipling detective story. You can read it online here. It begins,

On an evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward bound steamer’s smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost stories. As our party broke up a man, playing Patience in the next alcove, said to me: “I didn’t quite catch the end of that last story about the Curse on the family’s first-born.”

“It turned out to be drains,” I explained. “As soon as new ones were put into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never knew the people myself.”

“Ah! I’ve had my drains up twice; I’m on gravel too.”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve a ghost in your house? Why didn’t you join our party?”

“Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?” the steward interrupted.

“Sit down again, and have one with me,” said the Patience player. “No, it isn’t a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than anything else.”

“How interesting? Then it’s nothing any one can see?”

“It’s - it’s nothing worse than a little depression. And the odd part is that there hasn’t been a death in the house since it was built - in 1863. The lawyer said so. That decided me - my good lady, rather and he made me pay an extra thousand for it.”

“How curious. Unusual, too!” I said.

“Yes; ain’t it? It was built for three sisters -Moultrie was the name- three old maids. They all lived together; the eldest owned it. I bought it from her lawyer a few years ago, and if I’ve spent a pound on the place first and last, I must have spent five thousand. Electric light, new servants’ wing, garden - all that sort of thing. A man and his family ought to be happy after so much expense, ain’t it?” He looked at me through the bottom of his glass.

“Does it affect your family much?”

“My good lady -she’s a Greek, by the way- and myself are middle-aged. We can bear up against depression; but it’s hard on my little girl. I say little; but she’s twenty. We send her visiting to escape it. She almost lived at hotels and hydros, last year, but that isn’t pleasant for her. She used to be a canary -a perfect canary- always singing. You ought to hear her. She doesn’t sing now. That sort of thing’s unwholesome for the young, ain’t it?”

“Can’t you get rid of the place?” I suggested.

“Not except at a sacrifice, and we are fond of it. Just suits us three. We’d love it if we were allowed.”

“What do you mean by not being allowed?”

“I mean because of the depression. It spoils everything.”

The Blues Brothers

The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy film, a work of genius. How I had not yet seen it is a wonder best not dwelt on. I've seen it now, though, and it's a riot.

trailer:

Part of the soundtrack is available on Spotify:

The Telegraph says it "is a comedy classic with some of the finest car chase scenes in the history of movies." Empire Online says, "Funny as hell with lots of cool action and lots of cool lines." Rotten Tomatoes has an audience score of 92%.

Roger Ebert concludes:

What's a little startling about this movie is that all of this works. The Blues Brothers cost untold millions of dollars and kept threatening to grow completely out of control. But director John Landis (of “Animal House”) has somehow pulled it together, with a good deal of help from the strongly defined personalities of the title characters. Belushi and Aykroyd come over as hard-boiled city guys, total cynics with a world-view of sublime simplicity, and that all fits perfectly with the movie's other parts. There's even room, in the midst of the carnage and mayhem, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 suspense adventure novel by John Buchan. Wikipedia says,

The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the earliest examples of the 'man-on-the-run' thriller archetype subsequently adopted by film makers as an often-used plot device. In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Buchan holds up Richard Hannay as an example to his readers of an ordinary man who puts his country's interests before his own safety. The story was a great success with the men in the First World War trenches. One soldier wrote to Buchan, "The story is greatly appreciated in the midst of mud and rain and shells, and all that could make trench life depressing."

You can read it online here or here. It begins,

I returned from the City about three o’clock on that May afternoon pretty well disgusted with life. I had been three months in the Old Country, and was fed up with it. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would have been feeling like that I should have laughed at him; but there was the fact. The weather made me liverish, the talk of the ordinary Englishman made me sick, I couldn’t get enough exercise, and the amusements of London seemed as flat as soda-water that has been standing in the sun. ‘Richard Hannay,’ I kept telling myself, ‘you have got into the wrong ditch, my friend, and you had better climb out.’

It made me bite my lips to think of the plans I had been building up those last years in Bulawayo. I had got my pile — not one of the big ones, but good enough for me; and I had figured out all kinds of ways of enjoying myself. My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since; so England was a sort of Arabian Nights to me, and I counted on stopping there for the rest of my days.

But from the first I was disappointed with it. In about a week I was tired of seeing sights, and in less than a month I had had enough of restaurants and theatres and race-meetings. I had no real pal to go about with, which probably explains things. Plenty of people invited me to their houses, but they didn’t seem much interested in me. They would fling me a question or two about South Africa, and then get on their own affairs. A lot of Imperialist ladies asked me to tea to meet schoolmasters from New Zealand and editors from Vancouver, and that was the dismalest business of all. Here was I, thirty-seven years old, sound in wind and limb, with enough money to have a good time, yawning my head off all day. I had just about settled to clear out and get back to the veld, for I was the best bored man in the United Kingdom.

That afternoon I had been worrying my brokers about investments to give my mind something to work on, and on my way home I turned into my club — rather a pot-house, which took in Colonial members. I had a long drink, and read the evening papers. They were full of the row in the Near East, and there was an article about Karolides, the Greek Premier. I rather fancied the chap. From all accounts he seemed the one big man in the show; and he played a straight game too, which was more than could be said for most of them. I gathered that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin and Vienna, but that we were going to stick by him, and one paper said that he was the only barrier between Europe and Armageddon. I remember wondering if I could get a job in those parts. It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

About six o’clock I went home, dressed, dined at the Café Royal, and turned into a music-hall. It was a silly show, all capering women and monkey-faced men, and I did not stay long. The night was fine and clear as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place. The crowd surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied the people for having something to do. These shop-girls and clerks and dandies and policemen had some interest in life that kept them going. I gave half-a-crown to a beggar because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. At Oxford Circus I looked up into the spring sky and I made a vow. I would give the Old Country another day to fit me into something; if nothing happened, I would take the next boat for the Cape.

My flat was the first floor in a new block behind Langham Place. There was a common staircase, with a porter and a liftman at the entrance, but there was no restaurant or anything of that sort, and each flat was quite shut off from the others. I hate servants on the premises, so I had a fellow to look after me who came in by the day. He arrived before eight o’clock every morning and used to depart at seven, for I never dined at home.

I was just fitting my key into the door when I noticed a man at my elbow. I had not seen him approach, and the sudden appearance made me start. He was a slim man, with a short brown beard and small, gimlety blue eyes. I recognized him as the occupant of a flat on the top floor, with whom I had passed the time of day on the stairs.

‘Can I speak to you?’ he said. ‘May I come in for a minute?’ He was steadying his voice with an effort, and his hand was pawing my arm.

I got my door open and motioned him in. No sooner was he over the threshold than he made a dash for my back room, where I used to smoke and write my letters. Then he bolted back.

‘Is the door locked?’ he asked feverishly, and he fastened the chain with his own hand.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said humbly. ‘It’s a mighty liberty, but you looked the kind of man who would understand. I’ve had you in my mind all this week when things got troublesome. Say, will you do me a good turn?’

‘I’ll listen to you,’ I said. ‘That’s all I’ll promise.’ I was getting worried by the antics of this nervous little chap.

There was a tray of drinks on a table beside him, from which he filled himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He drank it off in three gulps, and cracked the glass as he set it down.

‘Pardon,’ he said, ‘I’m a bit rattled tonight. You see, I happen at this moment to be dead.’

It has been adapted for film 4 times. The first of these was the 1935 The 39 Steps, which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Robert Donat. Highly praised and generally considered a masterpiece, you can watch it online here:

Leptirica

Leptirica (or The She-Butterfly) is a 1973 Yugoslav horror film, the first Serbian horror movie. A type of vampire movie, it is nicely done and has aged well. It's only an hour long, too, so it's easy enough to check out if you don't mind sub-titles.

Here's a screen shot from about 2 1/2 minutes in:

Can I offer you a drink while you watch the film?

Please share a post with a drink in it and join us at the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering.

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ATCs (with the inspiration prompt named before each one):

Found Object:

Memphis:

Chairs:

Mother and Child:

Little Girl:

Bright:

Book It:

Games:

Abstract:

Random (not from a prompt):

Most important lesson learned this week: Padded envelopes are not my friends.

Happy Belated World Paloma Day and Patio Blooms

May 22 was World Paloma Day. I'm not much of a drinker (and when I say that I mean that the last tequila I had was in a Tequila Sunrise back in the 70s when I was in college). I had never heard of the Paloma, but I did a bit of research and decided to observe the day. I had to do some preparation, as I had no alcohol at all in the house. As a matter of fact I had none of the ingredients. You may remember that this, for us, is the year of frugality and cutting back, but I do still have some disposable monies, and I decided to use some of it towards this as a splurge.

Here's the recipe I used:

2 ounces tequila (blanco or reposado) (I used Jose Cuervo Tradicional Silver)
1/2 ounce lime juice (I used fresh limes)
7 ounces grapefruit soda (or enough to top off the glass) (I used Squirt)

Fill the glass with ice and add the tequila and lime juice.

Top it off with grapefruit soda.

Now is that easy or what?! And tasty. It made a tall glass, and I can't drink that much soda at one sitting. Next time I do this I'll halve the recipe and use a shorter glass.

I'll give you a moment to make your own, and then you can enjoy it while you read about the history of tequila. According to Wikipedia: Tequila "was first produced in the 16th century near the location of the city of Tequila". "When the Spanish conquistadors ran out of their own brandy, they began to distill agave to produce one of North America's first indigenous distilled spirits." "Don Cenobio Sauza, founder of Sauza Tequila and Municipal President of the Village of Tequila from 1884–1885, was the first to export tequila to the United States, and shortened the name from "Tequila Extract" to just "Tequila" for the American markets."

I did a lot of research into tequilas before I decided which one to get. Price is a factor, after all, and I wanted to get the best bang for my buck. After poring over sites reviewing all the many different brands (I mean who knew there were so many?!), I picked the Jose Cuervo Tradicional Silver. Wikipedia says it "is the best-selling tequila in the world, with a 35.1% market share of the tequila sector worldwide and a 33.66% share of the US tequila sector as of July 2013. As of 2012, Jose Cuervo sells 3.5 million cases of tequila in the US annually, and a fifth of the world's tequila by volume." It is quite the family tradition. "Jose Cuervo is family-owned and is run today by the Beckmann family of Mexico, descendants of Don Jose Antonio de Cuervo. Juan-Domingo Beckmann, son of Juan Beckmann, is the sixth-generation leader of the company."

The Paloma is said to be favored over the Margarita in Mexico.

And now I have a bottle of tequila in the fridge along with the rest of the 12-pack of Squirt (can't you buy single bottles of soft drinks any more?), and I'm wishing you could get half-bottles of liquor. Maybe I'll see if there's a Tequila Sunrise Day.... Nope, no day for that.

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Just a quick look at the current state of the patio blooms: