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… have returned from their 31-day tour of the Americas with tales of adventure.

And their mother and father are doing much better, thank you.

Can you believe such as cute young girl as this has been married thirty years?

Now that we’re grown-up, I’ll take this opportunity to print a racy poem, borrowed from Robert Herrick – and without his permission I’ll change a single word in it to make it perfect:

Whenas in silks my Paula goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me!

Will you permit me to call the BBC production of Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit a “movie”? All I will tell you about it is that it’s a fine story with some nice character actors who should be familiar to fans of BBC period dramas. This one is about many misapprehensions of character, which are all rectified in a climactic judgment scene. I was particularly fond of Martin Chuzzlewit’s speech in that scene, which opens with these strong words:

“The curse of our house,” said the old man, looking kindly down upon her, “has been the love of self; has ever been the love of self. How often have I said so, when I never knew that I had wrought it upon others.”

He had not only misjudged others – he had misjudged himself. His happy ending was only possible through self-awareness.

Or Hello, Dolly?

This morning Paula went down to the farmer’s market that is held every Saturday in the parking lot of the ice-hockey stadium. When she came back she had a big smile on her face and her arms full of bags. She told me to close my eyes. Then she held something under my nose and asked me what I smelled.

What I smelled reminded me of green chiles. Not exactly, but close – like a memory, or a memory of a dream. When I opened my eyes I saw the peppers, three of them – and they looked like some mighty fine Big Jims. We are unable to find real green chile here, of course, and have to depend on “mules” who carry dozens of cans to us when they come from the States. We even tried to grow some here this year, but our experiment failed miserably. So if these really were green chiles, or even a close cousin, it would be something.

The test, of course, would be to make some chiles rellenos. And to eat them. This was a challenge: there is no way to find the sort of farmer’s cheese we had in New Mexico, so I used the ubiquitous Eidam. I won’t tell you how I made the stuff to roll them in for the coating. And I fried them in sunflower oil. You can see the handsome picture below.

Then I ate them. And my verdict is that they will do – in a pinch. The chiles, however, have absolutely no piquant to them at all – none, zero, zilch, null. They were the most gringo-tasting rellenos I have ever eaten. And I would need to use less of this cheese. But, as I said, it would do – in a pinch.

We recently watched the Cohen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There. It’s done in the noir style, and the photography is riveting. The acting is quite fine as well. Still, the film didn’t feed my soul, even though I can certainly identify with the main character’s dilemma.

The main character is Ed Crane, a barber who feels trapped in life and he tries a few different ways to escape. His primary means of escape is by blackmailing his wife’s lover (as if money would help him out of the maze). He runs into a kink in his plan, and ends up killing the man. The theme of how fairly simple evil plans can quickly spin out of control with horrendous unintended consequences reminds me of Crime and Punishment, and is a good thing to be reminded of.

I suppose if I were going to lead a discussion on this film, I might ask you whether you’ve ever felt trapped in life, and (if you did) how would you try to get out. The film seems to be even more philosophical than that – Ed Crane is called “Modern Man” in the movie, so he is supposed to stand for all of us. Modern Man is trapped in existence – and how is he to escape? That might in fact make for an interesting discussion….

The following is from a blog entry by my daughter Karen – I edited the list with those that I have read, and those that I loved, but I didn’t indicate those I intend to read. If you want to play, go right ahead.

* * *

The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the “Nation’s Best-loved Book” by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS, and telephone.

The Big Read figures that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books. How do you stack up? (more…)

I spotted this sign on a restaurant in Bratislava yesterday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t open, so we had to settle for some Greek food. And, by the way, the Greek coffee was the best cup of coffee I have had in Slovakia. Mnam!

Bug is a srange movie, very interesting, not overwhelming, and well worth watching. It’s one of those that you have to pay very close attention to and stay awake for – but it’s only 88 minutes, so it isn’t impossible. The film uses a series of tiny, insignificant, seemingly random events to tie together several characters. One of the themes is how these people treat each other, and how that effects their lives. Sometimes the effects can be the difference between misery and happiness, or even between life and death.

The lyrics of the song played during the closing credits capture one of the central themes of the film:

If only humankind was not so selfish now
Selfish now
It’s hard to love your fellow man
However can I help myself
From harboring such evil

By the way, there is an idiot caricature of a Calvinist in the movie, which is ironic, because (as Paula pointed out to me) the movie itself could even be used to illustrate an aspect of Calvinism: countless unobservable events weave together a tapestry that works for the good of everyone – a complex interconnection that could never be the result of mere chance, and obviously is beyond the control of human will.