Sunday Sundries, 200

How can this possibly be the 200th edition of "Sundries"? Didn't I start this just a month or so ago?

1. AOTW: We are driving east on Aurora-Hudson Rd.; we arrive at the stoplight at the Stow Rd. intersection; we are signalling to go left; there is a line of cars facing us, also signalling to turn left; I see there is no one in the approaching right/thru lane, so I (cautiously!) begin our left turn onto Stow Rd. (north); at that moment the AOTW veers out of the left-turners approaching us, deciding (as AOTWs often do) to change his mind in traffic, endangering others; I see him at the last second, stop in the intersection as the AOTW zooms by, daffily on his way to the ceremony to receive his well-earned AOTW Award.

2. We saw two movies this week.

     - The first was via a Netflix DVD--the original Ant-Man with Paul Rudd. We'd seen Ant-Man and the Wasp and had (surprise! surprise!) liked it, so we thought we'd check out the original. Glad we did. It explained some of the things in the second film. We loved the technique--on display in Ant-Man and the Wasp: When Michael Peña tells a story, we cut to the story, and all the characters in that story are speaking in his voice (funny).

We saw the 2nd film principally to be able to communicate with our young grandsons (!)--but had such a good time. Link to trailer.

     - The 2nd film was far more disturbing--Spike Lee's latest--BLACKkKLANSMAN--a film based on a true story (from the early 1970s) about a black cop in Colorado Springs passing himself off (on the phone) as a white racist, endearing himself to the local Klan--and even to David Duke (an actor portrays him in the film, but near the end? ... check it out). Link to trailer.

A cop colleague (played by Adam Driver--who is very good) impersonates the other cop (played wonderfully well by John David Washington) when there must be a live encounter with the Klan. And there are more than a few.

Some truly powerful moments--some moving moments (I still can't get out of my head the song "It's Too Late To Turn Back Now," which formed the soundtrack for a dance party among the black protesters in the film--link to song; Cornelius Bros. & Sister Rose, 1971). I think this song choice, by the way, was a brilliant one: It's not a song of anger, of protest, of violence; it's a song of love, of hope.

Sure, there were some things I wish Lee hadn't included (like a revelation to David Duke near the end), but I cavil.

Some concluding scenes--actual footage--from Charlottesville, 2017, are wrenching.

Joyce and I have seen pretty much all of Lee's films--and this one, I think, affected me emotionally more than any of the others--and that's saying something.

3. I finished only one book this week, the last (as I sadly discovered) in Craig Johnson's series about a contemporary Wyoming sheriff,Walt Longmire. This one, The Western Star, 2017, has, I think, the most complex--and surprising--plot of all of them. There are two stories going on. The first takes place at the beginning of Longmire's career, when he is still a deputy. A bunch of Wyoming sheriffs are on a train (the eponymous Western Star), and ... murder.

The other story is contemporary. A man Longmire had arrested for murder (he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life) is now deathly ill, and there is pressure to release him. Longmire opposes this.

Johnson takes us back and forth between the stories all through the novel, and I will not tell you how each resolves itself.

Let me just say this: For the first time (I think) Johnson ends with a cliffhanger ...

As I posted on Facebook the other day, when I finished The Western Star, I hopped online to buy the next one (I've read them all, in sequence, on Kindle)--and was discouraged to discover that THERE ARE NO MORE. This is the last.

Sort of. There's a new one coming on September 4--Depth of Winter. And, yes, I've ordered it already.

Oh, and as I've written here before, the TV series and the novels are quite a bit different, each from the other. The TV shows (which I liked) veered off into some complicated conspiracies (as long-running shows are wont to do); the novels are more ... self contained. At least until The Western Star.

4. I can't get a song out of my head this week--and I have no idea what resurrected it from my memory: ""Cielito lindo." I see on the web that it's a song going back to the late 19th century (in Spanish, obviously), but I remember an English version--popular when I was an adolescent (I think)--and I can't remember who recorded it--or what year it was. (The Internet has not helped much, though I realize I've been a bit ... impatient.) All kinds of singers have covered it--including Luciano Pavarotti and the Three Tenors! (Link to Spanish version by Trini Lopez.)

5. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from dictionary.com

marplot [mahr-plot] noun

1. a person who mars or defeats a plot, design, or project by meddling.

QUOTES: ... Time is unalterable; he swings his merry bomb through centuries, nor feels a jot the mental agony of us sublunary mortals; therefore is he, to our thinking, a Marplot. -- , "New Music," The Metropolitan, April 1843

ORIGIN: The noun marplot is a combination of the verb mar “to damage, spoil” and its direct object, the noun plot, formed like the noun pickpocket. Marplot is a character in a farce, The Busie Body, written by Susanna Centlivre, c1667-1723, an English actress, poet, and playwright, and produced in 1709. In the play Marplot is a well-meaning busybody who meddles in and ruins the romantic affairs of his friends.