COMPLETELY forgot Valentine’s Day, hardly even knew it was February. In this winter of endless home improvement I seem to be caught in some kind of quantum field where I’m moving as fast as I can but get so little accomplished I might as well be the graviton. Yes, that’s it: I exist in theory only and have no mass, perfect.
Our porch swing looked kinda lonely this evening as the winter sun went down.
I’ve got every room in the house torn apart, top to bottom, one big makeover. I’ve been insulating around the new windows, plastering up to the frames, getting paint out of cans and onto walls and ceilings. That’ll clean up this construction site well enough to do shades and curtains. I can’t even think about interior trim. Maybe that’ll be next winter, in some other February I don’t notice until March.
This was this morning, after an overnight snow, maybe 10 inches. It was dry and as light as down.
Two weeks ago we had two feet of it but that melted fast. This one will, too. It’ll be t-shirt weather in two days, 55F. T-shirt weather if you’re busy doing anything.
This would have been a better picture of the ’49 truck had I waited another minute for the sun to break through.
Here’s a bit of morning light…
It was balmy the day before yesterday. Our new neighbor climbed a few of his Norway maples to trim them up high, deer were over there this morning nibbling on the tender ends of the branches he’d dropped.
That one in the center sees me in the kitchen window. She’s the wise old dam. She’s missing half her right ear, easy to spot.
How did I ever happen to miss Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill four years ago? Darkest Hour popped up on my Netflix menu a few evenings ago. It’s Oldman’s finest performance.
Before I saw Darkest Hour I would have said Mank was the pinnacle of his career.
Here’s an interesting and ultimately funny 3-minute bit Oldman did on The Graham Norton show.
Darkest Hour, by the way, was directed by Joe Wright, who must have a thing about Dunkirk. It’s central to Darkest Hour and the movie he directed on Ian McEwan’s Atonement.
Speaking of that time in history, I think I want to finally write something about this local kid I mentioned here a few years ago.
I said at the time I’d make an effort to learn more about the Langley. I did so, found what I take to be the only thorough and credible account of that engagement in the Java Sea. A disturbing story, to say the least. A tremendous waste of life for no good purpose. And military justice not only never caught up with the fools behind it, no one apparently even considered there might be culpability worth examining.
Anyway, I kept the story in the back of my mind for a few years, there seemed to be no good time to write about it. It would be apropos of nothing and not at all the sort of thing anyone would want to hear on a Memorial Day, a July Fourth, a Veterans Day.
No hook, as we used to say in the newspaper trade.
It occurs to me now, as it will to you if you can read the bottom of that stone: February 28, eighty years later… I’ll be here.
Tony DePaul, February 14, 2022, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
Some nice snow pictures to cheer us up, particularly with the deer. Agree Oldman is very good as Churchill. I actually liked him as the Fifth Element villain…
Wanted to say that I’ve now got a copy of Dawn Powell’s novel “The locusts have no king” which you recommended last time, just getting started with it, good feeling of place already, so thanks for the heads up about Powell, it’s going to be a good read.
Oh – and the current Phantom is just great.
I read one of the Manchester biographies forever ago. That’s where I first saw the “sealed in the privy” anecdote. Fun to see that in the movie, too.
After Darkest Hour, I may have to adopt the last lion’s toast as my own: “Here’s to not buggering it up!”
This whole aging out stuff is over-rated, and I still refuse to join AARP. I am amused because that’s how I do my home chores now as well, just barely.
Sunday I went and cut down a damaged Beech tree from the snow we had a few weeks ago. Of course, I was getting directions from my wife how to do it – as I recall she has never cut down a tree – EVER, but nevertheless, it was mostly an all-day project at age 67 and I couldn’t get my 11.5 HP chipper started (why didn’t I buy the electric start model?)
Now going back to when I was say…37…..the tree would have been 90 minutes and yanked on that Chipper until it did start, then I’d have scurried up the ladders and cleaned out the gutters, changed the oil in whatever vehicle needed changing, Trimmed all the bushes before Spring, and pressure washed the salt off the driveway – the maybe even washed a car. But that was 30 years ago, amazing the energy level then…..compared to now.
Today I have a tree service out there cutting and chipping and hauling away about a dozen other trees over the next two days and chipping up about 6 truckloads of accumulated branches. Writing a check is SO easy…..
I hear ya, bud. Moving in slow motion here. Will see whether I have any normal speed left in me when I get back on the road.
Ol’ CCjon’s my inspiration on that. He must be ten years older than us and is riding down in Mexico as we speak. A group tour, my idea of hell (and maybe he’ll decide it’s his, too), but still. Been following his dispatches. Here’s the most recent from two days ago. https://www.ridingthehorizon.com/2022/02/
In 2004, Mark Arsenault had a great idea about a guy to write about someday. His book comes out in April, 18 years later. You’ve got time to get to F2C Johnson…
Good point! Mark’s book does sound like a great read. Stranger than fiction because it’s true. I’ll hope to see you at the signing, Paul. Thanks for reading.
Your opening sentence sounds like a Phantom Sunday script.
Now I want to read up on “Phantom Thread” and find out why Daniel Day Lewis retired and what he did next. He has made amazing films. I remember hearing that he retired and wondered why.
I think the movies bring a lot of comfort on these cold winter nights. Be safe, Tony. The renovations sound like the house gets a lot of drafts until you’re done.
Funny about the Sunday script but yeah, you’re right, Robert, maybe some big brain standing behind the Faraday desk at the Royal Institution could lecture on the nature of the Visitor. The Visitor wouldn’t a quantum phenomenon, obviously, he’d have to be string theory, and the quantum guys dismiss string theory because it can’t be experimentally verified. Which sounds exactly like the Visitor 🙂
…Another great blog Tony…a bright spot in this seemingly long winter. I agree about Oldman. He was amazing in the Churchill movie and as a prior poster noted, he created a great movie moment with his frenetic, frantic EVERYONE in the professional. Prior to the Darkest Hour, my two favorite Churchill movies were The Gathering Storm with Albert Finney as Churchill and Vanessa Redgrave, and also Into the Storm with Brendan Gleeson as Churchill and Janet McAteer as Clementine. Great performances all around — but I was really impressed with Gleeson who I had not been familiar with before that movie. He’s an Irish actor and he was phenomenal as Winston. Check it out….and keep the wood fires burning…Babs
The wood fire’s burning as we speak! I’m about to head out to the back porch for another armload of black oak.
Among the supporting characters in Darkest Hour, I really enjoyed Lily James as Miss Layton. She’s adorable in a daughterly sort of way. You want to take care of her, make sure nothing bad happens.
Loved The Darkest Hour. The transformation of Oldman into Churchill is second only to Daniel Day-Lewis’ transformation into Lincoln as far as actors playing historical roles, IMO
True, that’s another astonishing performance. Have you seen Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread? It’s the movie that ended acting for him. Such a strange story. It got into his head and made him want to do something else.
Tony, I think Oldman is a fine actor, often cast as a villain, think 5th Element? I would love to hear more about the Langley, a very tragic story; so many ships with so many men that were never accounted for.
I completely forgot about him in The Fifth Element. Tried several times to get through that movie, couldn’t get past Chris Rock’s character. The only good thing Luc Besson ever directed is La Femme Nikita.
For my money, it doesn’t get any better than when Oldman screams “EVERYONE!” in The Professional.
Haha… that really is a great scene. A comic book movie. No capes, no superpowers, but it’s comic book writing through and through. Pulp set to pictures.