(Watch the prelude.)
(mid-March 2023)
Earlier this month I had a hankering for soup. It came out of the blue and this desire remains inexplicable to me. I don't recall watching a movie where a character made soup or any such thing. So this prompted some internet searching. For reasons I cannot remember, I steered things towards Russian cuisine and eventually settled on solyanka, likely because it sounded very hearty with all kinds of meat in it.
I used some kielbasa, ham, and chicken. The recipe called for dill pickles too which sounded interesting. Although I omitted the olives, I went out and bought capers for it and am now trying to figure out what to do with a mostly full jar of them. Onion, garlic, tomato – plus seasoning. It definitely had a very stew-like appearance as it cooked.
While it simmered on my stove, it occurred to me that a slice of Russian black bread would be the perfect accompaniment to this stuff. Sadly, it was too late for me to get to a bakery or store where I could find some and so I settled on a bowl of kasha with butter liberally applied.
It was all very tasty and just as hearty as I imagined it would be.
A few days after it had all been eaten, my Frau and I went down to the winter version of the famous Dane County Farmers' Market which, quite fortuitously for us, is held indoors just a few blocks down the street from our place. While there I ran into some Baltic Black Rye.
While it perhaps was not exactly the same as Russian black bread, Russia is near the Baltics and this looked and weighed like a loaf that would emerge from the oven of a babushka over there. Close enough, I figured.
This was a fine bread. It was dense and rib-sticky with a big, raw rye taste. A thin slice was enough to keep my hunger at bay for a few hours. Just perfect to provide the energy to shovel snow.
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I seem to have developed the bad habit of having an empty bird feeder when we get a good blanket of snow. Just like the last storm, there wasn’t much in the feeder after the most recent one cleared a few days ago.
Here’s a cardinal in the bush near our backyard feeder pondering whether to go check it for scraps.
It was pretty out on our walk to the farmers' market and I spied my first red-winged blackbird of the year.
That poor guy. He must have been pretty pissed off at all of the snow and thinking that he had arrived too early. If there is such a thing as avian profanity, I am sure this little fellow used it.
Despite the snow and the chill, I could hear several of his kind advertising a presumably warm and snow-free home down by the creek.
The next day I trekked on down to Owen Conservation Park for a guided walk.
We got an explanation of the stormwater management elements of the park which included a lot of ditches that let water drain into retention ponds.
In addition to the knowledge imparted by the Introduction to Infrastructure 101 portion of the walk, we also enjoyed the quiet, the natural scenery, and the crisp, clean scent of the winter air.
While we saw a few tracks, our stroll was largely critter-free. Perhaps this explained the paucity of wildlife.
I think this is a red-tailed hawk, although my ability to distinguish them from cooper’s hawks is not finely honed.
While it may have been a fairly uneventful walk – we didn’t even see any animal poop! – it was still nice to be out trudging through the snow in the fields and amongst the trees.
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In anticipation of the Academy Awards program this month, theaters here have been showing the nominees for Best Picture and this has given me an excuse to head to the cinema.
The first one I went to see was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. I’d wanted to see it last year when it was initially released but somehow never got around to doing so. When I heard that it had been nominated for an award, I regretted not having seen it on the big screen so I was happy to get the chance once again.
I am not particularly familiar with Luhrmann’s work having only seen Moulin Rouge! but know that he has a very colorful, extravagant visual style. That same aesthetic was put to work here as he, his set designers, and his cinematographer, Mandy Walker, created a movie that was very colorful with layered sets that sometimes looked realistic while at others took on a dream-like quality. Elvis looked fantastic.
It chronicles the life and career of the King of Rock & Roll, mainly through the eyes of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The first act shows us Elvis’ childhood and rise to fame. The middle gives us the man at the height of his popularity and the final act his decline and fall.
The first act was the most exciting. It portrays bits of Elvis’ boyhood before starting his own band and meeting up with Parker who helps him achieve super-stardom. One scene cuts between two sequences involving the young Elvis. In one, he and his friends are peeking through the boards of an old shack while inside a black bluesman plays guitar and a couple dance as if they were getting ready to do a little rockin’ of their own. This alternates with shots of Elvis the boy going to a revival tent and becoming entranced by the music and the preaching. He feels the Holy Spirit and falls into an ecstatic state.
This part was wonderful! It tells you about Elvis’ character and gives you some insight into his musical roots. But the best part was how the music and the editing built up the intensity of the scene until I got totally lost in it.
Not too long after this one there’s a scene where Elvis is doing a performance and has been told not to gyrate his hips. So of course he does so. Luhrmann gives Butler’s lower anatomy some close-ups and alternates those shots with some of teenage girls in the audience panting and just about to burst with excitement.
Luhrmann and company do a fantastic job of capturing the visceral thrill of being under the spell of musicians and their music.
From here the movie deals with Elvis, his stardom, and Parker’s manipulation. Despite the change of focus in the plot, the whole thing was just great fun. The acting was first rate and Luhrmann whips up an epic, glittery spectacle. And I just love the look of it. I think the colors were oversaturated giving the movie this dream-like appearance.
I kicked myself for not having gone to see it last year.
On the other hand, I was very happy that I didn’t watch All Quiet On the Western Front on Netflix last year and waited to see it on the big screen.
Francois Truffaut once said, “every film about war ends up being pro-war” and I couldn’t disagree more.
I had never read Erich Maria Remarque’s novel nor seen any of the previous attempts at adapting it as a film but I knew what it was about in a general sense. This new adaptation ended up being that and more.
It is 1917 and a mere teenager named Paul Bäumer signs up with the army under the impression that it his patriotic duty after hearing many speeches with a nationalist bent at school. He joins with some of his school friends and meets new ones at the front.
The movie alternates scenes depicting the horrors of battle with those showing the abysmal conditions in the trenches. Plus, there are various moments away from the battlefield such as one where Bäumer and friends find respite from war by stealing a goose from a local farm and cooking it up. There is also a separate storyline about a German diplomat and his attempts to bring an end to the war.
I found the battle scenes here to be the most intense and disturbing I’ve ever seen in a movie. The opening of Saving Private Ryan perhaps equals them but there are more such scenes to be had in All Quiet On the Western Front. As expected, they were kinetic bursts of action that really got my adrenaline flowing. The camera smoothly followed the German soldiers as they popped out of their trenches and scrambled across No Man’s Land towards the French as bullets whizzed by, explosions threatened to rip off limbs, and comrades fell to the ground lifeless.
In one scene, the Germans have to confront tanks. When they see the metal monstrosities, they get this look on their faces saying, “What the %#$@ are those?!” At one point, the front of a tank dips down into the trench and lands on top of a soldier and we get to hear his blood-curdling scream of death as his viscera squirt out of his body. That really irked me.
The Germans eventually overrun the French position and are taking a breather when the camera cuts to a long shot from above. We see the German soldiers in the trench and the approach of the French armed with flame throwers which turn the trench into a literal hell as they casually rain fire down upon the Germans burning them alive.
At this point, tears welled up in my eyes and I almost started bawling like a baby. I was just so appalled and horrified.
These visceral jolts of terror did absolutely nothing to glorify war, contra Truffaut, and everything to dramatically illustrate its horrors. Perhaps only the smell of burning bodies was missing.
But there is more to All Quiet On the Western Front than the horrific battle scenes. We watch as Bäumer befriends his fellow soldiers, for instance, and they take time away from the business of war, as I noted above. There are lighter moments as these young men develop camaraderie and use very black humor (and cynicism) to deal with their experiences.
These scenes add a modicum of levity but also serve to show the damage done to people even if it is not physical.
This is one intense movie and I highly recommend it.
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Bonus photo. One day my Frau was sitting on the couch with the cats when Piper decided to go for a snack. Well, Grabby decided that Piper's butt just wasn’t clean enough and to do something about it.
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