Dexter

We finished Season 1 of Dexter on dvd last night. The script is absolutely leakproof, not one hole in any episode, all 12 episodes tied together seamlessly. The acting all around is pitch perfect; Michael C. Hall is completely believable as a forensics pathologist who moonlights as a serial killer. One could object to the antagonist of the piece being a serial killer, I suppose, but it's a heightened reality we're experiencing. Dark comedy has never exceeded this.

Mullaloo Beach

While it's never crowded at our beach, it was absolutely vacant yesterday. It was a hot day too! Today there were a lot of families enjoying the waves. Us too!

Reading the Classics

I am now reading the classic Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I read this book in high school, but that was many moons ago and I don't remember more than the story outline. Dickens is of course masterful in his characterizations; every person in the novel, from Pip, the protagonist, to the least mentioned barkeeper is rich in detail and fully knowable. As readers we meet Pip as a poor, orphaned child being reared by a shrewish sister and her hapless husband, Joe. Pip is settled on his life, knowing he will apprentice to Joe. However, fate steps in in the form of Mrs. Havisham and Pip realizes there is a world outside his own narrow life. He begins to have expectations, though limited by the meaness of his existence. Then he is visited by a London lawyer who tells Pip that he has a benevolent benefactor and enough funds to train as a gentleman. Pip travels to London with "great expectations" and his life changes forever.

My main purpose is reading Great Expectations now is that I'm very interested in seeing David Lean's 1946 film which is judged by many film critics to be the best adaptation of a book in the history of film.

That Toolbag in Outer Space

One of our favorite sites on the internet is Heavens Above. We can find the orbits of dozens of satellites, including the ISS and iridium flares, and current locations of visible comets, planets, and constellations. An interesting recent addition to information on the page is the times for the visible orbit of the toolbag lost by the astronaut Heidi Stefanyshyn-Piper during her spacewalk on the last ISS mission. Of course, it's a decaying orbit and so the toolbag will eventually disappear from sight, but it's fun to find in the nightsky while it's visible. To find orbits over your head, go to the home page and put in your location, then follow the info in Satellites: ISS toolbag.

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Corman McCarthy

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West, is Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel set in the American West in mid-1800's. If you love your romantic myths of the settling of the West, don't read this book. It knocks the wind out of all the glorious tales of Texas Rangers, pony express riders, Kit Carson types, buffalo hunters, gold diggers, Indian raids, cattle drives, stage coaches and every other delusion you've held about early American life in the West. Possibly McCarthy's novel is just as mythical, but his genius is substituting his myth for yours.

A homeless, fourteen year old, called the kid throughout the book, hooks up with a gang of men who contract with the local government in Chihuahua to drive the Indians out of their territory. The gang menaces Indians on both side of the Rio Grande, collecting scalps as proof for payment. As the hunt progresses, it seems any scalp will do, and the mercenaries kill anyone they come across. The gang is led by two men, Glanton and the judge. Glanton is the captain of the gang and a merciless, conscienceless killer. The judge is the devil incarnate.

Absolutely everything about this novel is remarkable. The writing style is rich, yet sparse. McCarthy details the country as the gang rides through, but keeps details of the ride itself to a minimum, hinting at the action then hitting the reader with it. McCarthy has a vocabulary for the setting which is extraordinary. As I read, I continuously wondered how one person could amass all the words he has to describe the land. Is he a botantist, a geologist, a zoologist, an astronomer, a geographer as well as a writer? Chosen randomly from the text, here's an example of his style:

All to the north the rain had dragged black tendrils down from the thunderclouds like tracings of lampblack fallen in a beaker and in the night they could hear the drum of rain miles away on the prairie. They ascended through a rocky pass and lightning shaped out the distant shivering mountains and lightning rang the stones about and tufts of blue fire clung to the horses like incandescent elementals that would not be driven off. Soft smelterlight advanced upon the metal of the harness, light ran blue and liquid on the barrels of the guns. Mad jackhares started and checked in the blue glare and high among those clanging crags joking roehawks crouched in their feathers or cracked a yellow eye at the thunder underfoot.

In summary, Cormac McCarthy has written a violent lyric masterpiece, a must-read book of American literature.

Play Misty for Me (1971)

The second film in my Essential Clint Eastwood marathon is Play Misty for Me, a psychological thriller in which Eastwood stars and makes his directing debut. He plays Dave Garver, a Carmel CA disc jockey, well-liked around town in spite of his inability to settle on one girl. He drives a sporty convertible, lives in a cool house on the edge of a cliff, works nights spinning discs and reading poetry, and he's on his way up, receiving notice in San Francisco, maybe even an offer to work there. Then he meets Evelyn in a bar, what looks like a chance meeting, but Evelyn is an obsessive fan, the one who calls in every night and asks Dave to "play Misty for me." Evelyn takes over Dave's life. What begins as an affair leads to threats and we see before Dave does that Evelyn is very unstable and even dangerous.

Play Misty for Me is a good, small film. Parts of it are excellent, but some scenes are ridiculously dated, like the long walk on the beach which indicates his re-involvement with an old love. Shot around Monterrey and Carmel, the film focuses on the beauty of the coast and the local hot stops. The scenes shot live at the Monterrey Jazz Festival are wonderful. A seminal film for Eastwood, it's a benchmark for his development as both an actor and director.

Life in OZ

Yesterday we had late afternoon thunderstorms come through, even though the temperature stayed warm. When John saw the sunset developing beautifully, we grabbed the camera and ran to the beach. We stood on a dune to get this shot.

Then we walked down to the sand and took some more photos, like this one of a dad night-fishing with his son. Later the kid caught a nice herring.