An Unexpected Bonus

So we've been a few days in Colorado, visiting our peoples along the Front Range, and our daily plan goes like this: What are we going to do today? And then like this:    .

So, feeling a little restive, I decided I would strike out toward the east and visit a few of the less interesting counties in the country; specifically, two of the five counties in Colorado that I haven't already been to. And then, since I'll be out that way and already bored, I'll go up into Nebraska and travel through three of the remaining counties in the western part of that state, before stopping off in Cheyenne to visit the grave of someone who was, in life, very important to me.

My wife decided to come along. So we drive over to Yuma county and up to Sedgwick county, and into Nebraska, to Garden county. Then we turn left along the North Platte River, planning to head west to the next two counties, then to Cheyenne.

So there's a "police emergency" on the road, and we have to detour along a couple of mud roads (they've had way more rain than usual out this way lately), then up a paved road, across the railroad tracks, back to the road we were on.

What we hadn't realized was, the paved road we took at the end of that detour was the road we'd planned to turn onto going the other way. Of course, there was no sign at the mud road's end, so we didn't realize that until we came to a sign that said "Chimney Rock, 12 miles."

At that point we checked the map and learned that we were off course. But (1) travelling in this casual fashion means every intersection is an opportunity to change plans; and (B) the general rule of thumb, only recently articulated but long in effect, is that if you are close enough to see a sign like that, you're close enough to go see it. So we went to see Chimney Rock.

I've known for decades that Chimney Rock is a locally important landmark, and that it had something to do with the Pioneers. That's about it. Now I've seen it, and understand why it's an important place in our National story. Out there on the treeless plains of this continent, there are very, very few reference points; and very few Conestoga wagons were equipped with GPS. And this was all before cellphones, you know. So having a distinctive and easily visible landmark would have been very important to those folks trudging the plains alongside their oxen. And this is, certainly, distinctive.

There's nothing else out there that it might be confused with.

So that brought a little interest to this county-counting drive that I'd expected to be barely a distraction.

Then, in order to get back on course for that last county in western Nebraska, we had to go up the road a piece --- not very far --- to Gering. And there, on the far side of Gering, was Scotts Bluff. Not the town of Scott's Bluff, which I'd been to 30 years before (by accident), but the National Monument. Well. Who, in their right mind (a classification which, I like to kid myself, includes me), would pass within three miles of even the most meaningless National Monument and not at least get a stamp for the ol' National Parks Passport?

Scott's Bluff, it turns out, is big and beautiful and interesting, and all of you should go. It's actually two bluffs, separated by Mitchell Pass. There's a nice road that takes you up to the summit on the northeastern side, where you can walk the easy paved trails and soak up an appreciation of what travelling was like for those people who settled this country. Well worth the $5 car permit fee.

Mitchell Pass, between Sentinel Rock and Eagle (?) Rock

The Coming Thing? I Hope Not

Elsewhere, NY


I've heard it said that the technological advances in hand-held digital video recording will lead to a flurry of low-budget theatrical releases done in that way. Elsewhere, NY, seen last night at Houston's Worldfest International Film Festival, is, I think, an example of that method.

It results in a good movie ruined.  An interesting story of casual everyday betrayal, with superior writing by Tom Wilton, solid, well-crafted performances by the four principal actors (especially Andrew Ruth, who plays Todd --- which I probably liked best because, it turns out, he's from Austin), and of course the vibrant youth culture of 21st-Century Brooklyn combine to give this film great potential.

Wilton's script is filled with the sort of gratuitous profanity that many real-life 20-somethings mistake for sophistication. Even at three decades' remove, I can remember that feeling. What is noteworthy in the movie's use of coarse language is that it avoids reaching the point of gratuity: it is a natural, organic part of the world these people live in. It calls attention to itself, but quickly loses the power to shock or offend.

Jennifer arrives in New York; we see her first at Grand Central, expecting perhaps to be met, but finding no one there. She comes across as a small-town girl lost in the Big City, with all the prospect for disaster that such a situation evokes. (She's coming from Boston, she says, though apparently she learned little about city living there.) She must make her way to a friend's place in Brooklyn, but again, no one is there. She passes the time waiting in a bar, where she meets Todd and has an exuberant one-night stand with him before she at last meets up with her irresponsible and inconsiderate host, Christine. Jump ahead two years, and Jennifer has apparently fallen into a comfortable if not passionate relationship with Ethan. When Ethan's roommate moves out, he takes in a replacement ... who turns out to be Todd. At this point, the groundwork is well laid for the central tension of the movie.

I've often marvelled at the ability of good scriptwriters to sketch out the parameters of relationships with a few carefully crafted scenes and a few well-honed lines of dialog. For all the sketching and crafting in this movie, only fifteen or twenty minutes are needed. This seems to me to be a mark of admirable judiciousness, as in that time the three principal characters --- Christine is but a sidelight -- become fully fleshed out. But the impressiveness of it is almost lost in the mindnumbing camera work. Faces blur and fade in and out, as though only a poorly-designed knock-off digital camera is judging distances. Images shake side to side, and up and down, as if the technician holding the camera is coughing or giggling, or maybe just zoning out. Two or three minutes of this on America's Funniest Home Videos is watchable; 88 minutes of it on the big screen is barely endurable.

Add to the mix the questionable sound-editing choices made. I admit to making the assumption that the sounds we hear result from choices, and not simply the default mode of taking whatever the microphone happened to pick up and slapping it on the DVD as a finished product. Street noise, wind noise, jet engines passing overhead; all threaten to overwhelm the dialog in the exterior scenes, while interior scenes are cluttered with background conversation, interminable snatches of music (some of it good), and what sounds like the faint thrum of chain saws in adjoining apartments.

Despite the sound and visuals, the movie is a well-conceived work that, unfortunately, comes across more as a film-school project than a theater-worthy production. If that does turnout to be the future of movie making, I will be glad to stay home and watch snippets on You-Tube.