Happy Thanksgiving 2022!

 "The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added... No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union."

President Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation of Thanksgiving

From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!  I want you all to know that I am greatly appreciative of all of you that are reading.  I pray you have many things to be thankful for and that the list only grows over the coming days, months, and years.  I hope you are able to take the time to be with family today, whether it be the one you are born into or the one you choose, and are able to take the time to reflect on the blessings in your life and to express that gratitude.

Give thanks.

I know this year, as most always, I have much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to have the time I do with my family.  Working from home creates challenges, but it also has many, many positives.

I'm thankful my office has opened up so that I can go in as necessary and have enjoyed time with my co-workers.  I'm continually thankful for this new employer.

I'm thankful we've been healthy.  

I'm thankful for every time we've been able to see family, especially since we've moved away.

I'm thankful for our home and feeling home in Brownsburg, IN.  To have the church home we do.  To get to sing on that praise team.  For the friends we've made.

I'm thankful Jamie has found opportunities that she loves and that she is enjoying subbing at the kids school.  Getting to see them in the halls.  And getting to experience a lot of different classrooms.

I'm thankful the kids love school as much as they do.

Even in another absolutely crazy year, I'm thankful.  I'm very thankful.

I hope you are able to do the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Native American Heritage Month 2022

November is Native American Heritage Month.  Originally declared by President George H. W. Bush on August 3, 1990, the celebration was created in a landmark bill honoring America's tribal people.  The month aims to provide a platform for Native people in the United States of America to share their culture, traditions, music, crafts, dance, and ways of life.  It also provides a way for native communities to express their concerns and solutions for building understanding and friendships with the larger community around them.

The celebration has its origins in a turn of the century effort to gain just a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States.  The first such proclamation for an "American Indian Day" was made on September 28, 1915, by President Calvin Coolidge, naming the second Saturday of May as such a day.  The recognition has simply grown from there.  

We must recognize the heritage of our country and land dates back much farther than any date when a European stepped foot on this land.  And when we recognize that, perhaps we can start dealing with the harder issues.

It's a bit ironic that the month is shared with Thanksgiving, a time when we tell a quaint narrative of how the first Americans and the first European settlers shared a feast to mark getting through the long winter before.  A tale that helps us feel better about how the first Americans have been treated throughout our history.  We tell the tale of us getting along, and then turn and paint the first Americans as aggressors for the rest of our history.  We skip over the numerous broken promises, the numerous broken treaties.  And skip over the atrocities we heaped upon them.

We can, we should, and we must do better.

We can start by learning the names and the cultures of the native tribes around us.  By learning the truth of our Thanksgiving story.  By honoring and remembering those who have always been here.  Those on whose land we stand.

If we can do that, we will all be better for it.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

Chief Seattle, Duwamish

Noirvember 2022

It's November again, and in our house that means one thing - Noirvember.

Noirvember is a celebration of the greatest film genre of all, film noir.  Film noir refers to the stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations.  It's the genre that provides us the smooth talking detectives, the hard as nails femme fatales that get them in trouble, and the criminals we love to hate.

It remains my favorite genre of film and of literature.  I've spent the last couple of years reading through the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain.  And now that I've finished there, I've switched to the precursor with Agatha Christie and murder mysteries.  I've poured over the film careers of Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, and Richard Widmark.

To me, film noir is best served in black and white, as only that setting can provide the dark enough shadows to make it so perfectly captured.  This puts the best films in the 1940s and 1950s, which unsurprisingly, is the era I have logged the most film viewings in my Letterbox app.

Like last year, we've seen quite a few film noir new discoveries, a few of which I'd like to pass along as recommendations today:

• The Killing - Stanley Kubrik's tight heist noir.  It breaks the rules in all the fun ways.
• Force of Evil - We saw this at the TCM film festival with a live introduction by Eddie Muller for a live Noir Alley.  A fairly straightforward noir with a fantastic performance by Thomas Gomez, an underrated character actor.
• The Bad Sleep Well - Kurosawa's tale of revenge and corporate corruption.  Tense all the way through and while the ending can be frustrating, it sticks with you.  A great use of black and white and lighting in a famous alley scene. 
• The Hitch-Hiker - Ida Lupino's directorial triumph and the first film noir directed by a woman.  Tight, tense, three person film based on a real life crime.  Keeps you on edge to the end.
• Boomerang - bit more of a court-room drama, but compelling performances, nonetheless, by Dana Andrews, Arthur Kennedy, and Lee J Cobb.
• Panic in the Streets - this one was a trip to watch in the height of the CoVID.  Elia Kazan film with Richard Widmark as an officer of the US Public Health Service trying to stop a pneumonic plague from spreading through New Orleans.  Really interesting parallels.

Let me know your favorites.  Until next year, there's more Noir Alley ahead.

My November Guest

I'm currently reading a poem a day, focusing now on the works of Robert Frost.  So, periodically, I'm going to share some of my favorites.  Here, a poem on the melancholy of November and fall.

My November Guest

“My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

She talks and I am fain to list;

She’s glad the birds are gone away,

She’s glad her simple worsted gray

Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

And they are better for her praise.”

Robert Frost, A Boy's Will, 1913

Fall Back

 It's the most wonderful time of the year...

That day we we’ve had an extra hour of sleep.

I hope you remembered to set your clocks back an hour, otherwise you got everywhere early today. In law school, we had one student buried so deep in studying at the spring forward time, they completely missed the change on Sunday and didn’t notice until Monday morning. 

At some point, I do hope we can get rid of all this spring forward/fall back nonsense. Maybe now with the bill still passed in the Senate there could be traction on the one in the House, keeping us in this state. 

I hope you were all able to enjoy it and hope you have a wonderful day of rest.

Noirvember 2021

 

In November, our house celebrates Noirvember, a celebration of the greatest film genre, film noir.  Film noir refers to the stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations.  It's the genre that provides us the smooth talking detectives, the hard as nails femme fatales that get them in trouble, and the criminals we love to hate.

It's my favorite genre of film and of literature.  I've spent the last couple of years reading through the works of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain.  I've poured over the film careers of Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, and Richard Widmark.

To me, film noir is best served in black and white, as only that setting can provide the dark enough shadows to make it so perfectly captured.  This puts the best films in the 1940s and 1950s, which unsurprisingly, is the era I have logged the most film viewings in my Letterbox app.

This year, we've seen quite a few film noir new discoveries, some of which have quickly jumped to the top of my favorites list.   We have a few more to go, so I reserve the right to update this list, but I've included a few of my favorites below in case anyone needs any recommendations.  The first four films on this list are also on my top 10 favorite films of all time.

• The Thin Man - Endlessly quotable.  Nick and Nora Charles are definitely couple goals, minus the alcoholism.  Comedy with a touch of noir.  The movie that defined gathering all the suspects in a room to identify the culprit.  I love the book and I love this movie.
• Maltese Falcon - Noir at its finest.  A wonderful collection of character actors.  Bogart, Lorre, Greenstreet, Astor.  Truly the stuff that dreams are made of.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - I saw this at just the right time and it blew my mind.  All those characters together at once.  Interacting in inventive and appropriate fashions.  A touch of noir, and a lot of cartoon greatness.  Still technically impressive.
• Se7en - Again one that hit at the perfect time.  Great performances by Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey.  The seven deadly sins motif.  It led me to following directors, particularly Fincher.  Neo noir with an incredible hook.
• The Third Man - Has the coolest shot of any in film ever made with Orson Welles' introduction.  The zither soundtrack, a great speech about German innovation versus Swiss innovation.  One of the best films of all time.
• In a Lonely Place - Perhaps Humphrey Bogart's greatest performance (as well as Gloria Grahame's).  The best trick that it plays is that you truly do not know what to believe until the very end.  Heartbreaking and wonderful.
• Sunset Boulevard - If it's not evident with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and In a Lonely Place, some of my favorite noir films take place in Hollywood.  This is no exception.  An incredibly memorable opening where you start with the dead body and he explains how he got there.  Probably the best film about Hollywood ever made.
• Nightmare Alley -  A new discovery this year.  Tyrone Power's darkest role as a con man who reaches the top and falls to the bottom.  Haunting and deeply moving.  
• Out of the Past - Quintessential Mitchum, who along with Bogart, was made for noir.  Kirk Douglas, in only his second role, plays the heavy well.  Perfectly lit by director Jacques Tourneur and his cameraman Nicholas Musuraca.
• Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain's seminal noir brought to the screen, with a tour de force performance by Joan Crawford, as the mother who will do anything to provide her daughter a better life.  It goes wrong as only noir can.  A true classic.

And a bonus recommendation

• Woman on the Run - A great B noir, that keeps you off balance for the entire film.  Ann Sheridan provides a superb performance as a harried wife, seemingly unconcerned by the danger her husband is in as a witness to the central crime.  The film follows her journey to find her husband and avoid the police at the same time.

One day, I will get to go to Noir City, the annual noir film festival.  Until then, I'll settle for Noir Alley on TCM and our Noirvember celebration.  Lost in the shadows, and enjoying every minute of it.