cyberhobo

Month: June 2005

  • Movie: The Cliburn – Playing on the Edge

    A documentary of the 2001 Cliburn piano competition. It’s a refreshing change of pace to take a look at some real people doing extraordinary things. The music, though, is almost overwhelming. Contestants invariably select the most intense pieces, and the documentary of course shows the most intense segments – it makes for almost exhausting viewing.…

  • Movie: Kingdom of Heaven

    If you can get over the all-but-supernatural perfection of the main character, there is a lot to enjoy about this movie. At its best it’s a movie about the Crusades that’s not on a Crusade itself. The historical details are mashed up, but the setting and the major characters and events appear to be fairly…

  • Perimeter Tour Journals Finished

    It’s taken me a while, but I finally got all my journals and pictures posted from my bike tour around the perimeter of the United States.

  • Name the birdie

    These birds breed in Alaska, then migrate south for the winter. We see them here during their travels. The bright red head is most vivid early in the summer. They have a reputation for shyness, so I feel lucky to have nabbed this picture!

  • Book: Farenheit 451 / Ray Bradbury

    Well worth another read. The relevance of the material changes in curious ways over time. I felt especially surprised at this diatribe from Beatty, the fire chief: “Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils…

  • The Ironclads

    At last the sky was clear at dawn, so we packed up to check out Poacher’s Rock at the Ironclads. We were actually thankful that the road was a little too rough for the Subaru, requiring us to hike two thirds of a mile in to the rocks. Poacher’s Rock is the site of 11…

  • Movie: Revenge of the Sith (Star Wars Episode III)

    I’m just relieved that it’s over. It’s a testament to the power of this story that it worked its way into my psyche as a child and made me willing to endure any number of sterile battle scenes and stiffly-delivered, groan-extracting dialogues just to see it continue. Now at last, with Yoda to Degobah escaping…

  • It’s On – Liquidation Time

    Our fifth wheel purchase is making progress, making a drastic reduction in our inventory necessary. As we look around us, we realize that nearly everything must go. The RV will accommodate our bare essentials, and not much more. A garage sale was already in the works, but Ann took the reins and distributed a price…

  • Movie: Bread & Tulips

    A happy Italian tale of a failed marriage and broken family. A housewife loses her family on a tour bus and winds up in Vienna, where she falls in love and finds a new life for herself, but can’t let go of her family obligations. The characters are eccentric and charming, and the film slowly…