About ten minutes after I arrived home from Warrenton yesterday, my neighbor Darlene called. “Y’all burning leaves over there today?” “No, why?” (Silly me) “Well ya better look out your front door, your lots on fire.”
I did and it wasn’t quite my lot, but surely looked it from her viewpoint and it could be soon enough if I didn’t stop it from coming over here.
I turned off the stove where I was preparing dinner and het on out the back door. Spring is here but I haven’t hooked up garden hoses or anything yet. This was a good time to do it. While I was trying to untangle the extra hoses, the DISH people showed up to untangle our new receiver because the first one didn’t work. Carmen went into the house and her husband graciously helped me with the hose. That fire was HOT!
Neighbor Darlene called 911, I was trying to put the fire out closest to the house. (Brother is on full time oxygen) He doesn’t even know what is going on outside cause he’s fixing his TV programs.
With most of the fire out, Reggie and his partner of the North Carolina Forest Service showed up from south of Warrenton, near Louisburg! Cavalry to the rescue! Yea! Macon Rural Fire Company followed shortly afterward. Their big powerful hoses squelched the fire quickly, soaking the area so it wouldn’t start up again after they left. They also had control further down the lot where my hoses wouldn’t reach.
Whew! Nice guys. Modern day heroes.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Bride of the Wind
The “Bride of the Wind” is a movie of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel (nee Schindler) that I enjoy watching over and again. Each time I see it, I see something I haven’t noticed before. To me, that’s a sign of a good movie.
Based on the true story set in Victorian Vienna of Alma, the inspiration of great artists of music, architecture, fine art and literature of her time before she became a famous composer. I first claimed the movie because it featured a favorite artist Gustav Klimpt. Then I became enraptured with her story.
Jonathan Pryce plays the role of her first husband, the famous Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. The ruggedly handsome Vincent Perez plays the role of Oskar Kokaschka, painter of “Bride of the Wind” with his usual intense presence. Seeing him in this movie lead me to buying the DVD “Swept from the Sea.”
This is a real peek into the privileged and artistic life at the turn of the century in Europe. It has beautiful views of the country and the old city.
Based on the true story set in Victorian Vienna of Alma, the inspiration of great artists of music, architecture, fine art and literature of her time before she became a famous composer. I first claimed the movie because it featured a favorite artist Gustav Klimpt. Then I became enraptured with her story.
Jonathan Pryce plays the role of her first husband, the famous Viennese composer Gustav Mahler. The ruggedly handsome Vincent Perez plays the role of Oskar Kokaschka, painter of “Bride of the Wind” with his usual intense presence. Seeing him in this movie lead me to buying the DVD “Swept from the Sea.”
This is a real peek into the privileged and artistic life at the turn of the century in Europe. It has beautiful views of the country and the old city.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Swept from the Sea
Last night I watched the haunting movie “Swept From the Sea” made from the 30-page story “Amy Foster” written by Polish-Ukrainian Joseph Conrad depicting life in the late 1800s. Yanko leaves his village in the Ukraine and takes a ship to America but the ship crashes on the rugged coast of Cornwall, England.
At first he is taken for a wild man when he is washed up from the sea, ragged, starving and not speaking a familiar language. The quiet, outcast Amy Foster brings him a hunk of bread and washes his face when the farmer locks him up. Her tenderness touches and calms him.
The story follows their progress, his in learning to speak English, hers in learning to trust and to love. The expressions Vincent Perez emotes shows the torment and frustration Conrad must have experienced when he went to England as a young man not knowing a word of English before he arrived.
The movie spotlights the sea as Conrad has written about it in his many novels and how he must have experienced it in his many sea journeys. Perez brings his own touch of the smoldering gruffness that he brought to his role of Oskar in “Bride of the Wind.”
At first he is taken for a wild man when he is washed up from the sea, ragged, starving and not speaking a familiar language. The quiet, outcast Amy Foster brings him a hunk of bread and washes his face when the farmer locks him up. Her tenderness touches and calms him.
The story follows their progress, his in learning to speak English, hers in learning to trust and to love. The expressions Vincent Perez emotes shows the torment and frustration Conrad must have experienced when he went to England as a young man not knowing a word of English before he arrived.
The movie spotlights the sea as Conrad has written about it in his many novels and how he must have experienced it in his many sea journeys. Perez brings his own touch of the smoldering gruffness that he brought to his role of Oskar in “Bride of the Wind.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
