movies – Page 8 – Life In A Word

Venus and Her Deadly Sisters

Let’s begin with a quiz. Name a movie you’ve seen – any movie – where long after the fact you wished you’d never watched it. Not because it was a bad movie or a boring movie; rather because it left you with brain-burned images you’ll carry to the grave. I’ll give you a “pause” so you can come up with a movie.

[pause]

My own regret-I-saw-them movies are the following three: Fiend Without a Face (from the wonderful television series “Creature Features”, when I was a young and impressionable teenager), Deliverance, and Saving Private Ryan. If you haven’t seen those films, read the web synopses to understand where I’m coming from. Trust me; it’s safer than watching.

Recently, I’ve decided to add a fourth movie to my list: 2005’s War of the Worlds. Why recently? Because my wife decided to go all green-thumb on me in the last couple of weeks. She went to Home Depot and Lowe’s and purchased several plants for our recently remodeled home. She even ordered a few growee’s on-line (didn’t know you could do that). We have quite the conservatory now, from potted palms to fruit-bearing minis to fresh herbs. But the real reason for my fourth movie sits quietly on the kitchen window sill: three Venus Flytraps.

Venus Flytraps fall into the category of “carnivorous plants”; which, from an insect’s perspective, is entirely accurate. The organic mechanism of the Venus – called a “snap trap”, is frighteningly sophisticated. Pairs of hinged leaves lay open at the ends of delicate stalks, secreting a sweet smell to attract the bug. Once said bug steps on said leaves, hair-triggers activate a rapid closure, forming a capsule. The more the bug moves, the more the capsule hermetically seals, forming a “stomach” to allow digestion over the next one to two weeks. The capture itself takes less than a second. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with our own Flytraps. Venus #1 is still digesting the bug I placed on her leaves a week ago.

Besides the “snap”, carnivorous plants include four other delightful trapping mechanisms. “Pitfall” traps, as in pitcher plants, collect prey in a rolled-leaf container complete with a deep pool of digestive enzymes. “Flypaper” traps, as in sundews, utilize a glue-like substance all over their leaves to trap and starve their victims before digesting them. “Bladder” traps, as in bladderworts, create a vacuum inside a cavity sealed by a hinged door (I did say sophisticated, didn’t I?) Bladderwort victims trigger a surface hair and are literally sucked into the bladder, to be quickly digested. Finally, “Lobster-pot” traps, as in corkscrew plants, remind me of the Eagles’ Hotel California: thanks to their inward-pointing bristles, “you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave”.

Like my regret-I-saw-them movies, research on carnivorous plants should’ve stopped with the trapping mechanisms. Unfortunately, I kept reading and there’s more. Creature Features take note – these little guys are evolving. Pitcher plants used to get flooded by rain (compromising the digestion process), so they developed a flared leaflet to cover the opening. Sundews developed tentacles, which along with the flypaper help to trap their victims. Even more disturbing, larger sundews developed a symbiosis with a species of assassin bug. The bug eats the trapped insects while the sundew subsists off the insect feces (team effort!) Finally, some versions of monkey cups (which contain pitfall traps) consume small mammals and reptiles. Would you like another pause to consider that last bit of carnivorous plant trivia?

Carnivores are defined by just two characteristics. They must exhibit an ability to attract, capture, and digest their prey; and, they must be able to absorb nutrients from the dead prey and gain a fitness advantage from those nutrients. Hello, War of the Worlds human-harvesting Tripods. Hello, exotic-but-pernicious Flytraps. Maybe I should consider moving to Antarctica? It’s the only continent on the planet where carnivorous plants cannot sustain themselves.

I know what you’ve been thinking since the very first paragraph. “Dave, the perfect regret-I-saw-it movie for you is Little Shop of Horrors.” No thank you, good reader. I’m familiar with the Shop plot, and Audrey the Venus Flytrap sounds like a full-sized combo-nightmare of everything I’ve described above. On that note, uh, hang on. I should check my kitchen window Flytraps. I swear they look a little bigger than the last time I checked.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Personal Space

We’re in the midst of Holy Week (for us Christians), which for some means spending more than the usual amount of time in church. Starting with this past Sunday, most Christian denominations conduct a total of five church services unique to this week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Our Methodist church here in Colorado devotes an hour to each of these services (short by Catholic standards); some during the day, others at night. No matter how you slice it, Holy Week means a lot of time in the sanctuary.

The church sanctuary wasn’t always a welcoming place. Growing up in Los Angeles, my family and I belonged to a formal Methodist church, with a sanctuary I can only describe as intimidating (at least from a kid’s point of view). You entered the building from the back, where the doorway greeters beckoned you to a narrow narthex. So far, so good. But the imposing sanctuary lay just beyond, through a wall of soundproof windows and closed doors, with stern-faced ushers protecting its every entrance. The pews were hardwood and upright with thin cushions, thirty deep on either side of the main aisle, marching in perfect unison towards the steps of an even-more-intimidating white marble altar. The booming organ drowned out any conversation (which was always at a whisper anyway), and the soaring structure of the ceiling made a kid wonder when it would all come a tumblin’ down like Jericho’s walls.

The congregation of worshipers was a lot of “old folks”; the kind of people who thought kids belonged in “Sunday School” instead of the sanctuary (that is, neither seen nor heard). Hence as teenagers, my friends and I sat up in the balcony (at the back of the space, kind of like the last seat on the bus). You couldn’t always hear the pastor, but at least we didn’t feel the eyes of the disapproving adults down below watching our every move. From our vantage point they were just a bunch of suits and dresses, topped by a whole lot of gray hair.

“Sanctuary” took on new meanings as I grew older. The San Diego Wild Animal Park (now the “Safari Park”) opened its gates in the 1970’s and put a completely new spin on the concept of a zoo. Animals lived in wide open spaces instead of enclosures; broad, beautiful environments designed to mimic their natural habitats. Instead of pressing noses against cages or glass, visitors saw the animals from a distance, confined to the seats of a quiet tram circling the park. If I ever come back as a member of an endangered species (like the northern white rhino I mentioned last week), put me in the San Diego Safari Park. That’s what I call an animal sanctuary.

Also in the ’70’s, Hollywood produced “Logan’s Run”. The movie depicted a utopian society of the future, offering a wealth of pleasures and resources and good living… at least until you turn thirty. At thirty you reported to the “Carousel”, where you were assured a place in “Sanctuary” – the supposedly better hereafter. Logan and his friends decide to find Sanctuary before they turn thirty, and that’s where the curtain of the ugly truth is drawn back. I can still hear Logan fighting the controlling supercomputer as he moans “THERE IS NO SANCTUARY!” Logan’s world was seductive for sure, but it was the mystery of sanctuary that had me watching to the end.

Recently, sanctuary has taken on more puzzling associations. In the 1980’s, American thrash metal produced the band Sanctuary (but nothing in my research explains the name). Sanctuary Clothing is a line described as “…capturing the Los Angeles lifestyle… vintage styling with a handcrafted focus on detail…” Again, nothing about the name. The SyFy Channel’s Sanctuary ran for four seasons and explored gene therapy and cloning, and the “strange and sometimes terrifying beings” that emerged within the human population. Finally, today’s sanctuary cities appear to be anything but, as the political feud between the Fed and the state overshadows any sense of actual security.

My definition of sanctuary will always be that primary space for worship in a church; or to put it in broader terms, “a place of refuge or safety”. Whether that’s somewhere inside, worshiping in the pews as I’ll do tonight; or somewhere outside; say, walking on a quiet path in the forest, it’s more about a feeling than a location. Sanctuary is all about personal space.

Land of Flying Cars

My wife and I live in a rural area of Colorado known as the Black Forest. The high density of Ponderosa Pines in our small geography gives us our name. Remarkably, there’s only one other notable place on the planet named “Black Forest”: the region near Bavaria in southwest Germany. As it turns out, I have personal ties to both places, though I’ve never been to the south of Germany. Follow along as I connect the Forests.

Fill in the blank, “Best Childhood Movie: ________”. Most of you would respond with an offering from Disney. Including “Snow White…”, “Mary Poppins”, and “The Little Mermaid”, you’ve already covered sixty years of film-making, with countless other Disney classics in between. I don’t think I missed a single Disney growing up in the sixties and seventies, yet – go figure – my favorite childhood movie doesn’t come from the Mouse. It doesn’t even come from my home country. My childhood choice? The UK’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, based on the 1964 novel by Ian Fleming.

“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” – the captivating musical about the inventor and his kids who lived in a windmill cottage; about those wonderful-though-not-always-perfect inventions (my favorite: the eggs-toast-sausage breakfast machine); about the candy-maker and the toy-maker and the captivating castle world of Vulgaria; and most importantly about the magical flying motorcar itself – created figments of my imagination like no other movie. The lyrics to the title song (“…Bang Bang Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, our fine four-fendered friend…”) were burned into my brain. Someday I vowed to visit the lands of Caractacus Potts and Baron Bomburst.

As it turns out, the Potts’ windmill cottage really does exist (and not on a movie set) – as the “Cobstone Windmill” in Buckinghamshire, England. The mansion where “Truly Scrumptious” lived is in the same area of the country. And the Scrumptious Sweets Company was a working factory in Middlesex (today a steam-engine museum). But it was the castle and village in Vulgaria I really wanted to see. Not long after seeing the movie of course, I learned “Vulgaria” was a fictitious country. Baron Bomburst didn’t actually lord over the land, nor did he ever keep all those children as slaves beneath his castle. But the castle and the village are based on actual places. The village is Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria. The castle is Castle Neuschwanstein, also in Bavaria. And how ironic; both locations were inspirations for Disney as well: Rothenburg for the village in “Pinocchio”, and Neuschwanstein for the Cinderella castles in the theme parks.

To bring my journey full-circle, Rothenburg, Castle Neuschwanstein, and Bavaria sit in southwest Germany, adjacent to… the Black Forest. Germany’s version of the Forest is a mountainous land of picturesque villages, castles, vineyards and spas. This is the region that brought the world Black Forest Ham and “truly scrumptious” Black Forest Cake. This is the land of glass-making and cuckoo clocks. From the photos above, it looks every bit as charming as “Vulgaria”.

Colorado’s Black Forest barely amounts to a dot on Google Maps. Within our pines, the “town” is a hodge-podge of nondescript businesses clustered around a couple of traffic signals, with nothing more alluring than a Subway, a post office, and a couple of coffee shops. The terrain is fairly flat, with no windmill cottages or mountaintop castles or cuckoo clocks. But it’s a great place to live, with its own unique charm. And every now and then, when I’m deep in the pines, I’ll start humming that forever-familiar Chitty-Chitty tune, as I gaze up to the skies in search of a flying motorcar.

The Final Word

This time of year, we assemble our latest collection of “best-of’s” and “…of-the-year’s”. On Monday, America crowned its national champion in college football (Alabama). In a few weeks we’ll get the NFL’s equivalent in the Super Bowl. Last month several magazines recognized 2017 of-the-year’s in photography and current events. Soon we’ll also have best-of’s in music (Grammy) and film (Oscar). In this spirit, did you know there’s an of-the-year for words?

To be clear, “word-of-the-year” doesn’t refer to the annual expansion of the Merriam-Webster (.com) Dictionary or the Oxford Dictionaries Online. With the former, over 250 words were added last fall; with the latter, over a thousand. Instead, word-of-the-year is a single choice, representing “lasting potential as a word of cultural significance”. That’s how the people at Oxford see it, and thus this year’s honoree is “youthquake”. Huh? Maybe if you’re in Britain you’re not shaking your head like me. “Youthquake” means “a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people.” “Youthquake” has been around since 1965, but back then it was only a reference to the fashion and music industries. Today, it could (and is) being used in reference to the myriad demonstrations of change commanded by the millennial generation.

With the Academy Awards – should you not agree with, “and the winner is…” – at least you might have a favorite in the list of nominees. But the short list for 2017’s word-of-the-year is the following bunch of odd ducks: white fragility, unicorn, kompromat, broflake, newsjacking, gorpeore, milkshare duck, and antifa. Okay, maybe “antifa” would’ve been a good choice, but I count at least four others I’m seeing for the first time. More to the point, what happened to better choices like “hipster” or “pregame” or “alt-right”? Did none of those even make it into the dictionary expansion? They’re certainly more word-of-mouth than “youthquake”.

Perhaps “youthquake” will make it across the pond in the next year or two and enter America’s daily conversations. But the word is not off to a good start, considering several in Britain – including the CEO of a youth leadership organization – claim they’ve never heard of it. Maybe Oxford just has an affection for the word, so they throw it out there as an “of-the-year”. But that’s kind of like being labeled “America’s Best City To Live In”. The mere advertisement draws a bunch of tourists and other undesirables and next thing you know you’re no longer “best”. By the time we Americans get right with “youthquake”, Oxford and Britain will have moved on to 2018’s word-of-the-year.

Merriam-Webster’s Peter Sokolowski claims their word-of-the-year (apparently the honor is shared) “…gives us insight into the collective curiosity of the public”. M-W took a more scientific approach to it’s recipient, looking at how often certain words were looked up online, and their context with respect to current events. M-W’s 2017 word-of-the-year? Feminism. Look-ups of “feminism” increased 70% over 2016, and spikes in that activity were tied to comments made by politicians in Washington D.C., “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Wonder Woman”, and the sexual harassment revelations of the past several months. M-W gives “feminism” two definitions, but I prefer the second: “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.”

Two years ago, Oxford made a particularly clever word-of-the-year choice in “pictograph”. Rather than show the word, Oxford showed an emoji. If my spell-check is any indication, it takes at least two years to embrace the current word-of-the-year recipient. “Emoji” did not underline. “Youthquake” most definitely did.

Your True Love’s a Nut Job

Each Christmas season (which translates to every waking moment from Thanksgiving to the New Year), I’m fascinated we still sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I feel like a character in the Dickens world of Scrooge and Tiny Tim as I labor through the verses (ditto “Here We Come A-wassailing”). I should sing with an English accent. More to the point, I question the TDoC lyrics. What other context do we have for turtle doves and calling birds? What’s with the gold rings? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to understand more about a carol we’ve been singing for over two hundred years?

Depending on the source, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was either a) written as a children’s book – which eventually morphed into a song, or b) “code” for memorizing elements of Christian religion at a time when faith could not be openly practiced. I prefer the latter. For example, the two turtle doves represent the New and Old Testaments of the Bible, while the four calling birds represent the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The six geese represent the days of creation (“and on the seventh day He rested”), while the eleven pipers represent the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. “My True Love” is Jesus himself. Clever, no? (see here for the full “code”).

Wikipedia claims “the exact origin and meaning of the Twelve Days song are unknown…” so perhaps we should just leave it buried in the past. But I can’t do that. TDoC is so much more fun if you take the literal approach to the words.

The title is innocent enough. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” equals Christmastide, a season of the liturgical calendar in most churches. Christmastide begins on December 25th and lasts until January 5th (the day before the season of Epiphany). Twelve days. That’s even more celebrating than Hanukkah. Fine with me – our family likes to drag out Christmas as long as possible.

Beyond the title however, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” descends into total chaos. Consider the structure of the carol. TDoC is a “cumulative” song, which means you add the previous verse to the one you’re singing – just like all those animals in “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”. By the twelfth verse you’re singing about everything, and you’re totally exhausted. Some people solve the length by having a different voice for each gift. That’s great for the partridge in a pear tree singer, but kind of sucks for the drummers drumming singer (who only gets one chance to shine). Make sure you have a solid voice for the partridge in a pear tree.

Speaking of the gifts, let’s do some analysis. Other than the rings, your true love has an obsession with birds. He or she is gifting you an aviary on six of the first seven days. Doves, hens, swans, and more. Not only that, you’re getting pear trees and God knows how many eggs from those a-laying geese. (Note: pears and eggs make great Christmas gifts).

The final five days, your true love gifts you a bunch of workers and merrymakers for the estate you apparently have. You’ll gain a herd of cows (what else are those maids a-milking?) and you’ll have a some dancers and a band making quite the ruckus on your front lawn. The neighbors may complain. C’mon, you say: how much noise can eleven pipers make? Eleven? So you forgot about the aggregate of a “cumulative” song, did you? Your true love actually gave you twenty-two pipers by the time January 5th arrives… and twelve drummers, thirty-six dancers and thirty guys who like to jump. And don’t look now, but your twelve pear trees are swarming with 184 birds. Maybe you don’t have any pears after all.

Sorry, but if this is your true love’s idea of Christmas giving, he or she is a nut job (or at least an animal hoarder). Here’s my advice: run. Take your forty gold rings and date one of those lords or ladies instead.

Patriot State

Back when my wife and I lived on the West Coast, we had a neighbor who planted a “victory garden” in their front yard. The houses on our block were small and close together, so the postage-stamp spaces in front allowed for modest landscaping at best. There we were, nineteen neatly-mowed little lawns and one wildly out-of-control victory garden. One of these things was not like the others.

Thankfully, victory gardens carry more significance than the presence of hippies next-door (who knows what was in that garden). Victory gardens were originally planted during World War I to reduce pressure on the public food supply. The gardens were also considered a morale booster for citizens supporting the war effort back home. In that context, it’s nice to see an occasional victory garden around my neighborhood today.

Three days ago – the second Monday in August – the United States celebrated Victory Day, commemorating Japan’s surrender to the Allies at the end of World War II. On second thought I shouldn’t say “United States”, because forty-nine of fifty states ignore V-Day altogether. The only state still recognizing Victory Day? Small but steadfast Rhode Island. Since 1975, when Arkansas dropped its “World War II Memorial Day”, Rhode Island stands alone.

“The Ocean State” has good reason to continue its jubilant celebrations. 92,000 of its residents served in WWII alone (more than 1 in 10), and almost 2,200 were killed. Rhode Island is the smallest U.S. state in size and the eighth-least populated, yet the proportion of participants in “The Good War” was far higher than most other states. Perhaps that’s because Rhode Island hosted several armed encampments. Perhaps that’s because of patriotism born from the first of the thirteen colonies to declare independence.

Victory Day was originally labelled V-J Day or “Victory over Japan Day”. President Truman declared the holiday shortly after the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The original V-J Day was September 2nd, 1945 (marking the formal end date of WWII), but revised to August 14th to recognize the actual day of Japanese surrender. V-J Day came shortly after V-E Day (“Victory in Europe” Day), signifying Nazi Germany’s formal surrender to the Allies the previous May.

Victory Day became infinitely more famous when Life Magazine published Albert Eisenstaedt’s photo of an anonymous sailor and nurse celebrating the moment of Japanese surrender in downtown New York City. Today a massive statue of the “Unconditional Surrender” (more affectionately referred to as the “Kissing Sailor”) can be seen in San Diego’s downtown waterfront, adjacent to the USS Midway aircraft carrier.

Thirty-six countries besides the United States celebrate some form or another of a Victory Day. Why not our other forty-nine states? Are we (as in the recent events in Charlottesville) determined to erase the nice/not-so-nice history defining the freedoms Americans enjoy today? Victory Day recognizes the triumph of good over evil, not the Confederate brand of freedom. Note a critical detail as well: Japan struck first, in its late-1941 assault on Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor. America was not the aggressor.

Maybe someday I’ll get to Rhode Island so I can a) witness the celebration of Victory Day, and b) thank the residents for keeping a most important moment in U.S. history alive. In the meantime I’ll count on George Bailey every Christmas to remind me, immortalized in the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. George was deaf in one ear so he couldn’t serve in WWII alongside his brother Harry. Instead he stayed on the home front, running “paper drives… scrap drives… rubber drives.” And, “… like everybody else on V-E Day, he wept and prayed… on V-J Day, he wept and prayed.”

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

All That Glitters

Audrey Hepburn will always be one of my favorite actresses. Her grace, beauty, and acting – especially her comedic roles – combined for an enchanting big-screen presence. I’ve only seen a handful of her movies but it didn’t take many to fall in love with Audrey’s delightful characters. Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (which premiered shortly after I was born). Sabrina Fairchild in Sabrina. Hap in Always (her final film). And perhaps my favorite role, the quirky Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

In the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly gazes into the New York City Fifth Avenue store window and famously observes, “Nothing very bad could happen to you there.” Holly’s probably right, but that’s not to say something very bad couldn’t happen to Tiffany’s itself. Sales and profits are down significantly over the last two years. Cartier and David Yurman steal market share from the ultra-wealthy. As detailed in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Tiffany & Company is resorting to pedestrian strategies to restore its cachet. And those strategies are so not Tiffany’s.

The first sign of Tiffany’s troubles might have surfaced last February, when the company debuted its first-ever Super Bowl ad. I’m not sure what tarnished the Tiffany’s image more: a television commercial stuffed between plugs for beer and tortilla chips, or Lady Gaga as its newest sponsor. Apparently, that’s an appeal to the Millennial generation (as if young people shop at Tiffany). No offense, but Ms. Gaga is no Audrey Hepburn, as Zales is no Tiffany. There’s a bit of a stain on the robin’s-egg blue.

The one and only time I visited Tiffany’s New York City location was two years ago with my family. Despite our touristy dress we were greeted warmly by the security guard as we passed through the grand polished brass-and-glass doors. Once inside, after a nervous glance at the showcases of diamonds (as if we could afford anything whatsoever), we were politely redirected to the fifth floor to “more affordable offerings”. I took no offense, as I was only hoping my daughter could snag one of the famous blue boxes as a souvenir. Turns out she purchased a Tiffany’s gold ring for several hundred dollars while my wife and I settled for a set of Tiffany’s ceramic mugs.

As satisfied as we were with our purchases, I have to admit gold rings and ceramic mugs removed a bit of the Tiffany prestige. I more associate Tiffany’s with priceless diamonds and silver – befitting royalty. In fact, that’s where Tiffany’s got its start: almost two hundred years ago as a purveyor to the Russian imperial family. Tiffany’s also brings to mind its trademark advertisement, showcasing a single piece of jewelry against the silhouette of a couple embracing – a refined, iconic portrait of elegance. Audrey Hepburn, not Lady Gaga.

Today you can purchase Tiffany ceramics, as well as Tiffany leather goods, paper products, watches, fragrances, and even a limited-edition cell phone. You can find over 300 Tiffany shops in 22 countries around the world. I thought Tiffany was more of the “Rome-Paris-London-New York City” kind of retailer, complete with stern, immobile security guard at each front door.

Admittedly, some of my first associations with “Tiffany” were far removed from diamonds and gemstones. Tiffany Darwish was a flash-in-the-pan American singer in my late teens (her only real hit: a retread of Tommy James and the Shondells’ I Think We’re Alone Now). I developed an affection for Tiffany lamps – the stained leaded-glass variety – when I studied the Craftsman style of architecture in college. And it’s hard to get the lyrics to Big Blue Something’s singular hit out of my head; especially the lines: “And I said, ‘What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’ She said, ‘I think I remember the film.’ And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it.”

Tiffany & Co. recently ousted its Chief Executive in search of a new one, with hopes of improving both sales and image. To the new leader in search of new answers, I say look back to the Golden Age of Hollywood for guidance, when the Tiffany blue was truly iconic. As Holly Golightly would say, nothing very bad will ever happen to you there.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Survivor: Siberia

Very few shows capture my attention like CBS’s Survivor. What started as a fairly contrived reality television competition has evolved over many years to a fascinating cat-and-mouse game of wits. Survival of the environmental extremes pales in comparison to the mental madness brought on by deliberate deceit, misunderstood conversation, and naked errors in judgment. The lack of sleep by itself (on some nights strategic, on others unavoidable) would have me stepping out of the game well before the final day.

Like most reality shows Survivor is edited to manipulate the viewing experience to be as entertaining as possible. You only see what the producers want you to see. Given hundreds of hidden cameras, I can only imagine how much film ends up on the “cutting room floor”. Regardless, Survivor is undeniably popular in America (with similar competitions in fifty other countries). The current season – the thirty-fourth – is watched by over ten million viewers. There have been over five hundred episodes. And the format of the game is relatively unchanged from the first competition seventeen years ago.

When “The Hunger Games” movies came out in 2012, I remember how I couldn’t help drawing several parallels to Survivor. In both cases you have contestants battling until only one remains; the recipient of untold riches. In both cases the contestants have but a few items of comfort and are forced to endure the harsh conditions of their surroundings. Also in both cases, you have a game manipulated behind the scenes by the powers that be, to maximize the entertainment value for its viewers (even at the “expense” of contestants).

So now let’s talk about Game2: Winter, the latest spin on reality TV competition from Russia. Brace yourself.

Game2: Winter (G2W) is a hybrid of Survivor and “The Hunger Games”. Take fifteen men and fifteen women, drop them into a remote location in Siberia (which is anywhere in Siberia come to think of it), wait nine months and see who survives. Each entrant must be declared “mentally sane” to qualify (kind of an oxymoron for a G2W player, don’t you think?) and chooses up to 100kg of equipment from a warehouse en route to Siberia. Clothing. Tools. Weapons. Whatever they feel they need to survive. Each entrant also gets a satellite-linked panic button. That comes in handy when they encounter the hungry wolves and bears in the region – assuming the production crew can get to them fast enough.

With a particular nod to “The Hunger Games”, G2W will be televised 24/7. Oh, and the contestants can do anything they feel is necessary to win the game. Anything. The Russian government has gone on record to say players will be prosecuted for crimes (i.e. murder, rape, physical violence), and the producers say they won’t interrupt such activities. 2,000 cameras have been strategically located to capture the “entertainment”.

Games2: Winter premieres this July. The extremes of Siberia (100 degrees in the summer, -40 in the winter), the lack of adequate food/shelter, and the resident wildlife make you wonder if anyone will survive, let alone commit a crime along the way. But apparently the $1.6 million prize is worth the risk in Russia. G2W has a lengthy waiting list for its thirty contestants. To them I say: I hope one of you will outwit, outplay, and ultimately outlast the others. I certainly hope it doesn’t take nine months, nor something worthy of prison time. May the odds be ever in your favor, even if I know they won’t be in Siberia.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Bon Voyage!

Every now and then I come up with a topic for my blog, and then the topic somehow surfaces in the natural course of conversation later the same week. It’s a little unnerving – perhaps divine intervention – to watch someone bring up something you hadn’t thought about in years, or at least until a few days earlier.

Such was the case this week when I opted for a (virtual) visit to Mont Saint-Michel, the majestic island commune and fortified abbey just off the coast of Normandy, France. Mont Saint-Michel came to mind because I received a mailer from my alma mater advertising a ten-day trip to the region next summer. The itinerary includes a stopover in Paris, a base hotel in the historic seaport village of Honfleur, extensive tours of Normandy focusing on the events of World War II, and finally, a full day exploring the island of “St. Michael’s Mount.” Mon dieu, what an adventure!

Mont Saint-Michel has a remarkable history on top of its dramatic architectural elements (which you can read about here). Its buildings date to the 8th century, with the Romanesque abbey and monastery at the very top (“closest to God”), literally supported by a vast network of halls for stores and housing, and finished elegantly at the bottom – outside the walls – with individual houses for the handful of fishermen and farmers who live there. The church inside the abbey is partnered with an open-air cloister (a square covered walkway for reflection). A statue of the archangel Michael watches over the land from the very top of the church spire. Magnifique, no?

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia about Mont Saint-Michel. You may think the following photo is a distant view of the island. Au contraire. The Mont has a “sister” across the channel near Cornwall. England’s island of “St. Michael’s Mount” is much smaller, but it still shares the characteristics of Mont Saint-Michel, including the significant rise/fall of the surrounding tides, the conical shape of the island, and a chapel at the top.

In today’s world Mont Saint-Michel is a little touristy for my tastes, so perhaps it’s just as well I’ve never made the pilgrimage. 2.5 million visitors descend upon the island every year, hosted by only 25 full-time inhabitants (monks, nuns, and shopkeepers). Tourism is literally the only source of income. Besides a walk through the abbey and the spiraling streets, you’re channeled into the requisite shopping area, for food (including the famous to-go omelettes), and for purchases that can only be labelled as “tacky”. I actually have one of these souvenirs (below photo). Sacre’ bleu! Maybe if they’d left off the sailboat…

To further detract from the mystique of the Mont Saint-Michel, a permanent walking bridge was built three years ago, allowing round-the-clock access from the mainland car-park. Once upon a time you had to wait until low tide and then quickly walk across the natural spit of land before the water returned. Now you just cross whenever you want. Too bad, but apparently the channel was filling in with silt and a bridge was the only way to keep the island an island. C’est la vie.

My first introduction to Mont Saint-Michel was forty-odd years ago on the shores of California, not France. San Diego County hosts elaborate sand-castle building competitions on its beaches, and one year I snapped the following photo of the winner.

To visit Mont Saint-Michel, you’ll need to drive four hours to the west of Paris, all the way to the coast of the English Channel. Unless you have a hankering for WWII history, there isn’t much else to draw you to the region. Which brings me back to the start, and my comment about topics resurfacing later in the week. Three days after I wrote this post, I was having a beer with some older friends and we got talking about the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. One of the guys said his dad served in WWII and he’d taken him back to the beaches of Normandy, where he’d spent part of his time as a medic. “Normandy?”, I said. “Yes”, he said. “You know, in the northwest of France near Mont Saint-Michel?” To which I almost said, “excusez-moi?”

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

This April, a movie called The Circle will arrive in theaters, and it just might generate enough buzz to displace political headlines. The previews start innocently enough: a wide-eyed young woman “Mae”, who can’t believe her good fortune at being hired into the thoroughly glamorous Internet company “Circle” (a super-hybrid of Apple, Google, and Facebook). Predictably, things take a turn for the not-so-good when Mae realizes her new employer seeks a singularly “true” Internet identity for its consumers, revealing all there is to know about a person.

The previews for The Circle intrigued me enough to give the book a try, even though the reviews were mediocre at best. But no matter; the premise draws me in and keeps me reading. What resolution can possibly exist in a not-so-distant future where an individual’s “privacy” goes completely out the window? The Circle proposes an all-knowing (and therefore) all-exploiting Internet service; a corporate version of totalitarianism. I can’t imagine a happy ending, can you? As Ray Bradbury would say, something wicked this way comes.

Ray Bradbury authored countless short stories placing believable humans in not-quite-so believable circumstances, yet seeking a peek into a probable future. “Fahrenheit 451” is perhaps his most famous example, but I have my own favorites, including “The Golden Apples of the Sun”, “A Sound of Thunder”, “Skeleton”, and “The Veldt”. I own a collection of Bradbury’s “hundred best”, and find them just as compelling as when I first read them forty years ago. Why? Because they still aren’t quite believable. The presumptions and technologies and societies of Bradbury’s stories are still somewhere around the corner of the world of today. But I have no doubt they’re coming.

The same case can be made for the cult-classic neo-noir film Blade Runner, produced in 1982 but based on a book written decades earlier. Blade Runner made several far-reaching assumptions about a dystopian Los Angeles of the future: a) climate change, creating an environment dominated by darkness and rain, b) culture change, where its inhabitants, language, and food are decidedly Asian, and c) technological change, where “replicants” (robots) perform the mundane tasks humans no longer care to do. Blade Runner’s mystique is in the depiction of a familiar place transformed by radical changes; the kind that aren’t so unbelievable. Not now perhaps, but they’re coming. (Also coming: a sequel to Blade Runner later this year).

Here’s another example from Hollywood. Logan’s Run (which was an on-screen disaster just begging to be remade thirty years later), depicted a completely controlled, pleasure-filled world inside a giant, sterile dome – but only until age thirty, when its inhabitants were ceremoniously put to death (to conserve the resources of a supposedly dying planet). By default, Logan’s world is a society where everything is new and clean, everyone is “young”, and a day in the life is controlled by some behind-the-scenes, largely technological presence. “Logan 5” and “Jenny 6” (a delightful nod to the loss of individualism) are too dependent on the comforts of their world to ever acknowledge its limitations. Considering how technology shapes our actions and decisions today, perhaps Logan’s world is not so far-fetched anymore.

The appeal of Ray Bradbury, Blade Runner, and Logan’s Run – even today – is stories about worlds that are (still) not believable. We can enjoy them yet keep them at arm’s length, comforted by the thought “can’t really happen”. And that’s what makes The Circle a serious conversation piece (even if it’s a box-office flop): a taste of an all-powerful, all-knowing Internet – if governments and corporations let it get that far. Once we reach that point is there any turning back, or will “drones” more aptly describe humans than cool little flying machines? Terrifying foresight for sure, but hopefully not prescient thinking.

Okay, you’re done reading now. Back to your Facebook feed.