to and from houghton

I just returned from a weekend journey to Houghton, Michigan, located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I went for a wedding. This is the second time I've been to Houghton; both times for weddings. The wedding was held in a park with Lake Superior stretched out at the backdrop. I continue to call Lake Superior an ocean, for with waves like it sometimes has and with a horizon which holds no land, it feels like an ocean to me.

On the way to Houghton, heading up on I-75, my girlfriend Sally and I came across a billboard advertising PoopyCredit.Com. "Stinky Credit? Yes?, try poopycredit.com." Filthy Lucre, indeed. What gets me most is the utter infantilism of the word "poopy." Who does this appeal to? And should they be allowed to vote?

While that particular billboard will sadly remain etched in my brain, I have another image from the trip which I shall cherish: a large, reclining fish smoking a pipe. Yep: smoked whitefish.

sidewalk biking

I've just moved to Ann Arbor. I used to live in Boston.

There are plenty of bicycles here. Not as many as there should be, but a start. But they've started with a problem: the vast majority of Ann Arborites (or is it Ann Arboreans? What are the rules for this sort of thing?) ride their bicycles on the sidewalk. You are walking along a sidewalk and lo and behold you find someone cruising down the side of the walk you are using. And I don't understand it. Why are so many people riding their bikes on the sidewalk? My gal sal says that at least folks are riding bikes, and she highlights the fact that so many people are scared of riding in the streets. Moral: we should be thankful for the sidewalk riders, for they are riding bikes and not gas-guzzling. I see her point. But Ann Arbor isn't exactly Grand Central Station, especially in summer. My question: How does this sort of thing get started? How does an entire town come to think that it is okay to ride bicycles on the sidewalk?

begin again & Youth

So I was sitting around (unemployed) and thought I'd try to blog again. We shall see how this goes.

I watched Youth of the Beast (dir. Seijun Suzuki, 1963) today. It's a hard-boiled revenge drama, with an-ex cop (Jo) in the anti-hero role. Suzuki starts the film in black and white, at a murder scene. At the end of the scene the camera fixes on a table with a "colored" flower sitting in a glass. Besides ushering in the use of color for the rest of the movie, I wonder if this is a jab by Suzuki at other Japanese directors who were working in black&white: This is Now. Perhaps the most jarring feature of the film is its embrace of non sequitur as a narrative device. Suzuki jump cuts often, showing no concern for narrative continuity. But what I found most enjoyable about the movie was its elaborate mise-en-scene. There is a justly famous scene in which the head of the Nomoto gang whips a whore as an orange-lit sandstorm blows violently in the background. An early scene in which Jo invites himself into the Nomoto gang makes stunning use of volume contrasts, with silence put to hallucinatory effect.