Looking for a Blue Tarzan

February 13, 2010

I wanted to see Avatar again before I drew any definitive conclusions. Griz and I have been sci-fi fans forever, but Griz periodically dozed off during our second viewing (he’d only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before). And although I stayed awake, I have to admit I was more restless and impatient than I anticipated. The 3D shock-and-awe just didn’t compensate for the thin plot and dialog on the second run.  I was more irritated by the noise and violence.

Still – I’m glad I saw it again. The visual artistry is worth a second take. I noticed a lot visually that I missed the first time and I look forward to a sequel.

After all, it’s not as if James Cameron doesn’t warn us about the simplicity of his parable. If the stereotypical characters don’t jump out at you early on, by the time you hear the word “unobtainium,” you should have a clue.  James Cameron’s forte has always been special effects.  An old story with a new look works for him (and apparently his audience). Everyone who saw Titanic knew the outcome before they entered the theater.

I suspect James Cameron has great fun making movies, and I think he wants his audiences to have fun, too.  Nothing wrong with that.  Giving the Nav’i elongated canine teeth  is such a clear ploy for today’s vampire popularity that it’s laughable. He probably threw in many of Avatar’s other cliches and plot deficits just for fun, too (perhaps to see if we’d notice).  Cameron’s close enough to my age that I’m sure he saw the same old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies on TV that I did as a youngster. In Avatar, the only thing missing when the deus-ex-machina beasties stampede in to save the Nav’i is this:

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And from what I’ve read, it seems most people (including reviewers) come away from Avatar with the message they took into the theater beforehand. The rejecters reject the same things they always reject, the admirers admire the same things they always admire.  Appreciating good art is like that – the best art offers each of us an intimate subjective experience. With Avatar, gamers get a techie game, spiritual seekers get transcendence (although some devout reject Avatar altogether as promoting paganism), environmentalists get ecological connectivity, pessimists get to feel depressed because Earth isn’t as sublime as Pandora, optimists get to hope Earth is becoming Pandora.  Lots of good guys and bad guys to go around – with cross-overs and a paradox or two.

Here’s what I walked into the theater with: I am fortunate enough to live in an area where Earth’s vibrant glory is readily accessible and visually competes damn well with anything you can create digitally. This, of course,  keeps me fairly optimistic about life in general and our environmental direction in particular. Though not religious – spiritually, I lean toward nonduality.

Here’s the message I took out of the theater: The  Nav’i R Us.  We are rejecting our small, violent selves and becoming something larger. We are connected to all life, but life itself is a school and there are often mortal risks associated with learning to make the important connections. Ultimately, caring and connectivity will prevail and we’ll choose to banish our small, violent selves.

But the best thing about Avatar is this: popular movies are a reflection of our cultural consciousness. Even if the ideas are presented in elemental terms to reach the masses, ticket sales in response to Avatar’s themes of environmental responsibility and global connectivity represent very positive trends.

I had fun, too.

By Trish | Posted in Art, Family, Movies, Nature, Philosophy, Spirituality, Television | Tagged , , , , | Comments off

Tree Power Up: Tall Inspiration

January 30, 2010

I’ve admitted here before that I love big trees.  When we first moved here,  I actually considered affectionately naming some of our big evergreens – but I changed my mind.  Naming them would be insulting, I think – it would imply a level of intimacy we may not deserve. After all, part of my love is for their wildness. Naming things always implies dominion or control.  We own these trees in paper legality only – control of them is illusory. It would diminish them to attach names. You never really own any other living thing – you just borrow it – to look at, to cherish or befriend, to use as a resource when necessary.

I’d also hate to get too attached.  Big trees fall. Some have to be cut down.

And most of our trees grew to their glory before we arrived here – without  the need for words or names. They just are, surviving tough conditions right where they stand, beyond analysis or judgments – and they’re mighty nonetheless. Passive endurance resulting in magnificent splendor. Unintentional artistry. (Though some would say it’s intentional.)

Look upward while standing quietly beneath a big tree. You cannot avoid feeling the power. Imagine what it takes to oppose gravity to that extent, processing sunlight, circulating nutrients and water to such great heights?

Big trees demonstrate the great wisdom of nature – they bend to buffeting winds, lean toward sunlight or bow to obstacles as necessary. When partially knocked down, they slowly redirect themselves back skyward, fortifying themselves even more at the bending point. They shed the unnecessary to better endure and prosper. I admire them.

Hard to believe such giants start out smaller than this volunteer western red cedar struggling for a foothold in our driveway gravel. This 3″ youngster was a seed last summer. I pot and replant more of these little buggers than is practical, but it’s hard for me to think of them as weeds.

The great tree symbology in James Cameron’s Avatar pleased me.  Avatar’s popularity demonstrates a positive direction in our collective consciousness. As little as twenty-five years ago, I doubt if Avatar (with or without 3D) would have captured such a large audience. Twenty-five years ago, only us die hard sci-fi types would have gone. Sure, there are probably more sci-fi enthusiasts now than ever before, but Avatar goes beyond sci-fi – it touches our growing ecological and spiritual awareness – our acknowledgment of an immutable connectedness.

A serendipitious tree article showed up in Griz’ Nuts & Volts Magazine last month. An Idaho company, Voltree manufactures a bioenergy harvester which attaches to a living tree and uses the tree’s metabolic processes to create electricity. The small electrical generators do not harm the tree. (At least we don’t believe they harm the tree.) Of course, the amount of energy you can generate this way is limited – these generators are used to power passive surveillance and scientific monitoring equipment. Still, it’s a kind of symbiosis that tickles me.

Voltree’s products are the kind of green technology we’re heading toward  (very slowly) – ways to use our resources without depleting or harming them.  We are starting to make those critical connections – artistically, figuratively, literally.

Of course, you get a lot more energy (quicker) from a tree if you chop it down and burn it to heat the shelter you’ve built with it’s carcass.  (Intentional shock value.)  See my next post Tree Power Down: Timber!

By Trish | Posted in Art, Hermit's Rants, Home, Movies, Nature, Philosophy, Science, Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , | Comments off

Memorable Hermit Georgia O’Keeffe: “…No One to Satisfy Except Myself.”

November 17, 2009
Georgia O’Keeffe in Abiquiu, New Mexico, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, August 16, 1950

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The Lifetime Channel recently aired a made-for-TV movie entitled Georgia O’Keeffe starring Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. In spite of excellent acting, the movie was a big disappointment to me* [see footnote], focusing primarily on O’Keeffe’s turbulent love affair with New York photographer Alfred Stieglitz (played by Irons), her ultimate marriage to him and her [...]

An Efficient No Can Do-Loop

October 29, 2009

Using the 1-800 number provided in a letter we received from Boeing retiree medical plans, I made a telephone call this morning to confirm some information I was unable to confirm online, where I conduct most such business.

I was greeted by a very HALesque, pear-shaped tone, male 3d_1001_1032computer voice which asked me to enter the ID number.

Immediately after I did so, HAL admitted sadly: “I’m having some problems. I’ll transfer you to a representative.”

I was impressed and rather tickled that HAL was willing to admit his fallibility so promptly rather than sending me off to a string of endless menus.

Furthermore, I didn’t have to wait for a live representative. Tami came on the line immediately, provided her name and asked if she could help.

I asked if the ID number I’d entered made it through to her.

She said “no” and asked for the Boeing employee’s name.

She looked the name up to confirm she should offer further assistance and repeated her offer.

I described the information I wished to confirm.

Tami replied with: “So this is a Health and Insurance Plan question?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have to transfer you to someone who can help.”

Uh-oh.

And she transferred me back to HAL – who was still feeling ill.

Calm but decisive.  No options: “Our system is not available now. Please call back at another time. Good-bye.” Click.

Well, at least I was never on hold,  HAL never called me Dave and he didn’t fade out singing Daisy. A quick good-bye is always much better than being ejected off into space or something.

Might be a sad commentary on our times, though – I’m now so well-trained at phone call hassles with intricate, unhelpful menu loops, getting nowhere efficiently feels like a kind of victory.

By Trish | Posted in Humor, Mis-Tech, Movies | Tagged , , | Comments off

Unintentional Hermit Chuck Noland

May 19, 2009

Actor Tom Hanks created a truly Memorable Hermit  in the 2000 motion picture Cast Away. Hanks’ character, Fed-Ex manager Chuck Noland, is the only survivor of a plane crash and is forced to survive alone on a desert island for four years. His transition from a portly, time-obsessed urbanite to a tan, bearded, slightly-emaciated athlete is [...]

Trish’s Sense of Snow

January 4, 2009

A few years back I rented the DVD Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) a rather dark, mystery thriller based smillaposteron the book by Danish author Peter Hoag. The female protagonist, Smilla (played by Julia Ormond), is a half-Inuit woman and snow researcher. When a young boy from her apartment building falls from the roof, the police rule the death an accident. Smilla can tell by the boy’s tracks in the snow that he was chased off the roof.

I’ve been thinking about that movie a lot the last several weeks – not about the resolution of the mystery, but about the many vagaries of snow – the varieties, moisture content; how it falls, lands, rests, melts, refreezes, compacts; how snow impacts what it rests upon and a lot of other variables I have not previously had the opportunity to observe.

I’m not a big snow sports person (too many people funneled into a small area). What skiing I have done involved a series of cross-country day trips; and although the quality of snow, terrain and potential avalanche danger made big differences in my cross-country pleasure (or lack thereof), I was always unfamiliar with areas I was traversing, so I was more focused on getting from point A to point B, less consciously focused on the snow itself.

My newly developed sense of snow comes from watching it and shoveling it (repeatedly) on this landscape which I know very well in all seasons. It’s been a sometimes arduous, but revealing adventure – a new opportunity to learn something about nature by being in it.

We still have 5 inches of snow in open areas with some potential for more this evening before warm temps and solid rain move in to send us back to normal.

snowprint5 It will take the plow piles a week or more to dissolve. Many of our non-indigenous shrubs are emerging from the snow weight looking worse for the experience. But now we get to watch (and maybe help) the recovery.

And as much as a sunny respite appeals right now, I’ve actually been reminded of why I make a lousy tourist.  It’s more than just my reclusive nature. I’m not a person who enjoys hitting the highlights of a locale – seeing the stationary thing you’re supposed to see and moving on to the next thing you’re supposed to see.  I prefer to stay, work, play – even reside in an environment – long enough to observe and attempt to understand  – to, in some way, become a part of the process.

By Trish | Posted in Home, Movies, Psychology, Sports, Weather | Tagged , , | Comments off

Anthony Hopkins as Memorable Hermit Dr. Ethan Powell

December 3, 2008

In the 1999 movie Instinct, Anthony Hopkins plays a renowned anthropologist, Dr. Ethan Powell, who “goes ape,” vanishing for more than a year to live alone with a band of mountain gorillas.  This may not qualify him as a hermit in the truest sense, but that’s the advantage of a personal blog – if I think he’s [...]

Documenting a Life: Hermit Dick Proenneke "Alone in the Wilderness"

October 24, 2008

No Most Memorable Hermits list would be complete without Dick Proenneke (1916-2003) whose hermit life can frequently be viewed during PBS pledge-drives. “Alone in the Wilderness” tells Proenneke’s story of life alone in Alaska, relying on simple hand tools and his own physical labor to build  his cabin and sustain himself with little outside assistance – no small feat [...]

Where Have All the Female Hermits Gone?

October 8, 2008
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Thought it was about time to include a woman on the Most Memorable Hermits list and discovered (with the exception of a few within religious orders), it’s hard to find historical records of the female of the species. I could launch into a long, feminist diatribe here, but I won’t – just the basics: Until the last [...]

More Memorable Hermits: Mountain Men Jeremiah Johnson and "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp.

September 16, 2008

No list of memorable hermits would be complete without one or two “mountain men.” Most Memorable Hermits No. 3 and 4 will be Jeremiah Johnson (played by Robert Redford) and Johnson’s mentor/aggravant “Bear Claw” Chris Lapp (played by the late Will Geer). The 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson was directed by the late Sydney Pollack. Filmed in [...]