Watch the Dynamite Lady Blow Herself Apart

Many years ago, I remember laughing at a commercial for a monster truck show. The highlight was when the announcer screamed "Watch the Dynamite Lady BLOW HERSELF APART!" 

Feels like the Dynamite Lady really blew herself apart today. That I painted this miniature a few days ago is an odd coincidence or an unfortunate portent. You decide. 
 

Trump's Song(s)

I've been following electoral-vote.com since 2004; it's my go-to site for reasoned analysis of politics in the United States. A few days ago the site's writers asked readers to suggest appropriate theme songs for Donald Trump. I did so, and they ran my choices today: 

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/May11-3.html

I'm "E.W. in Edmonton, AB, Canada," around the bottom third of the page. My choices were "Entrance of the Gladiators" and "Frolic," for those who don't care to follow the link. My reasoning is explained at the electoral-vote link above. 

Stable Indictment

At long last, Donald Trump has been indicted for one of his many alleged crimes. Let justice prevail. 

EDIT: Make that more than 30 alleged crimes. 

Bargain Block

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting with Sylvia in the theatre room while she was watching Bargain Block, a reality show about two guys who renovate homes. The show's hook is pretty interesting: the guys buy really cheap, awful houses in Detroit, renovate them, and then sell them at affordable prices. Typically they buy a property for $1,000 to $50,000, pour in a few tens of thousands of dollars in renovations, and sell them for $85,000 to $115,000 or so. And it all happens in one neighbourhood--a sort of two-man urban redevelopment scheme. 

It all sounds too good to be true, but I've gotten kind of hooked on the show and the two guys doing the renovations and their friend the realtor seem utterly sincere. Moreover, the renovation guys are incredibly talented, turning houses that were falling apart into genuinely beautiful spaces. 

Like all "reality" television, Bargain Block has its irritating tropes--the obviously rehearsed moments that are meant to look spontaneous, the fishy editing, the screen time wasted on establishing shots that don't relate to the story or even help set the mood, the music, etc. But the sincerity of the leads and their obvious talent shines through all that. They obviously love their work, and if the numbers they display are to be believed, they really are creating affordable housing and restoring a neighbourhood that desperately needs it. To my embarrassment, I was moved to tears by the end of one episode because of the simple everyday humanity on display. People are actually nice to each other on this show, and I think I'm starved for that. 

Search for Bargain Block on YouTube if you're interested in seeing clips from the episodes. 

Oregon Trail Mix

 

Blackout Tuesday

 

52-48

Fib

Poem

Good fit

For today

Don Trump's acquittal

Gives lie to the lie that lies count

Ninja Sylvia

Dat Other Dominion

One day, I wondered what Canada would look like if each American state bordering Canada joined Canada as new provinces. Here's what that would look like: weird. I'm betting we'd almost double our population, though, given we'd be getting Seattle, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Not to mention Detroit and Cleveland and Minneapolis...

All the Right Moves for All the Wrong Reasons

A film with tremendous integrity, All the Right Moves (Michael Chapman, 1983) puts skewed cultural priorities into grim perspective. It's the story of Stef (Tom Cruise), a high school senior with just enough talent to play college football, but not enough to make the major leagues. Showing uncommon wisdom for a teenager in this sort of movie, Stef plans to leverage his football talent into a scholarship so that he can pursue an engineering degree in college; it's his way out of the dead-end, decaying factory town that has already claimed the sweat and happiness of his father, brother, and ancestors down the line.

Stef's coach, Burt Nickerson, (Craig T. Nelson) wants to escape, too; if he can win one big game against a team ranked third in the state, he's almost certain to land a prestigious and financially rewarding college coaching gig. Similarly, his players have a shot at showing college scouts their value.

But the game is narrowly lost, with some of the fault going to Stef, some going to the coach, and there's blame all around. The coach manages to land a job at a California college anyway, but he slander's Stef's reputation, scaring away college recruiters. It looks like Stef is doomed to stay in town and work a factory job, just like his family before him.

Meanwhile, Stef's girlfriend Lisa (Lea Thompson) supports Stef's efforts to secure a place in college, even though she knows success means she'll lose him. As she notes, there are no scholarships for her; she's a talented saxophonist who dreams of being a musician, an impossible dream given the price. Only the football players have a chance of actually achieving the American Dream.

In the end, the coach relents and offers Stef a full scholarship at the college he's coaching at in California, and his mom, dad, brother, and girlfriend are all on hand to urge him to take the opportunity. Stef signs the contract, and we have our happy ending, one that comes in the last seconds of the film and is shot and acted so wryly that the filmmakers dare us to take it at face value.

So we shouldn't. This may be a happy ending for Stef, but the larger injustices prevail. The film explicitly states that there is no escape for Lisa and so many others, but Stef takes his shot anyway. You can hardly blame him. But maybe you can blame a culture's values for trapping so many for the sake of so few.

Apollo 11 Soars

That men in fragile ships crossed the gulf from the Earth to the Moon in an era when computers the size of bedroom closets could do little more than basic math seems astounding today. Apollo 11, the new documentary by Todd Douglas Miller, captures the awe and wonder of that incredible journey, 50 years in the past this summer and still, to my mind, the single greatest human achievement.

Using glorious high definition footage left neglected for years in storage, Miller covers the mission from launch to recovery--not only the ships and the astronauts, but the ground crew, and in some ways most compellingly, the vast audience of ordinary people who came in their multitudes to line the beaches of Florida for launch day. The excitement on these faces is palpable; they know they are witnesses to history, that they are watching a moment that will, if we are fortunate, live on in our collective memory for as long as our species lasts.

Miller thankfully eschews voiceover narration; he lets the images, the astronauts, the ground crew and the rumble of rockets speak for themselves. Music is used sparingly at key moments--the launch, the landing, the return to Earth--with superb effect.

Even though the mission went without a hitch, there are still many moments of high drama, particularly during the landing on the moon, when a countdown clock shows the lunar lander is rapidly running out of fuel and a computer program alarm goes off multiple times in the last seconds before landing. There are a few moments of self-effacing or near-gallows humour here and there--my favourite is probably when Buzz Aldrin reminds himself not to lock the lunar lander door on his way out to the Moon's surface.

Watching Apollo 11 now, especially on a giant IMAX screen that provides some of the scope and scale necessary to give audiences a sense of the magnitude of the story, is necessarily bittersweet. As a human being, I'm proud that hundreds of thousands of people worked together to make possible the exploration of a strange new world, an astonishing feat that proved what human beings are truly capable of. And yet, I struggle to name an accomplishment of the same spirit-lifting grandeur. Perhaps we'll find it if we manage to save our civilization from our own folly in the fight against climate change.

On the other hand, even if our species destroys itself before its time, we can remain proud of those shining days in 1969 when we took our first steps beyond the cradle of Earth and, ever so briefly, explored the universe beyond.

The Eventual Anticlimax

For our last full day in New York, Sylvia and I concoct an ambitious plan to visit Grand Central Terminal, peruse its shops and entertainment, and perhaps even embark on a short train journey. But our plans are thwarted, because the rain is far to heavy to walk the distance and we can't get a cab because of the high demand from United Nations delegates in town for the gathering of the UN General Assembly. Resigned, we hit the closest diner for breakfast and spend the rest of the day catching some sleep for the early morning flight that lies ahead.

New York is by no means a dirty city, but this is, in fact, how they put their garbage out. Trash piles are everywhere, and Sylvia insists on a photo to ensure we show as many facets of the New York experience as possible. 

Art and the Park

Too Much, Top of the Bus

They say the best way to learn New York's geography is to take a bus tour. And so we do.

Consume. Obey. Reproduce.