Sitting in the AT&T store waiting to do some phone upgrades. Rather complex maneuver; had to request a replacement for a damaged phone, then bring in the replacement to swap it out for a new one. As usual the price is somewhere between eight dollars and a thousand. I’ve never known exactly what I pay for a phone; does anyone?
So I’m becalmed at a table, waiting, wincing - threw out my back shoveling and made it worse somehow, and was barely able to stand when I woke. Not good when you know you have to schlep heavy suitcases down three flights and hoist them into the car. Yes, the alarm meant it was time, this was the morn, she was off again on another adventure in life.
We had stayed up late talking about things - too late, probably, but she wasn’t going to sleep much. She’d already made breakfast. Wife got up, and we all bustled about with that double-edged mood of merriment and sadness. Happy for the moment and sad for what was to come.
Off to the airport, again, chatting about things great and small.
But let me back up a day.
The greatest joy in life, besides seeing your enemies paraded before you and hearing the lamentations of their women? Museum-going with Natalie. all these years, all these cities, all these hallowed halls. This time it was home, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. There was a special exhibition of Renaissance art from the Uffizi.
The old McMead / Kim / White designed entrance:
It was crowded. Great works large and small.
When the indigestion kicks in even though you ate bland and had some Tums:
The pleasures of an Art History minor: knowing who this guy is.
The cool regard from the man himself, across the centuries.
The exhibit had some ancient Roman artifacts to demonstrate the source material for the artists. A funerary urn:
The design was reused with minor variations, and I suspect it was reused a lot.
We wandered through the European portion of the Institute, with the old running patter. And I got to add to my series of pictures of Natalie regarding art. The last was the Tate. And now here, in our home town, right before she steps through another portal.
Seventeen hours later, at the airport, again. The goodbye hug, again. Watched her go into the terminal, striding off on another adventure.
Tuned the satellite radio to the 40s station, and up came "Over the Rainbow." Okay, that's cruel. Well, let it out. It's just like driving in the rain, and I know this road.
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I'm surprised, really: now I'll look at all the guys in old movies with this information in mind. |
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So many BIG movies. The word had implications and penumbras we miss today.
We’re backstage at a boxing match, and there’s a dame in trouble.
High-concept art from the start. It works.
I love this shot.
It's Bleak Hopper.
No, Bleak Hopper is not the cinematographer.
Lee Van Cliff and the cook from Forbidden Planet.
And the dame, the good girl trapped in danger. In a combo, you might say. A combo of large proportions.
Anyway. We’re here for the images, and the inadvertent documentary.
This is easy to find, no?
Find the clue. Got it? Right! In the middle you can make it out. The Hotel Barclay.
Careworn, cheap, bawdy, rank. But now . . . well.
The Bad Girl:
The Good Girl Who’s Gone Bad, a bird in a gilded cage, trapped in a loveless cinch with a mobster, listening to classical music, because she gave up classical piano to be a high-class moll:
The Bad Guy:
He’s fantastic. Cocky, intelligent, articulate, sporadically violent, walking right up to the psycho line but staying on the smart side.
Ah, look who:
Our old friend John Hoyt, always smart and unsparing. He’ll always be the bad guy in “When Worlds Collide” for me.”
Anyway. You can see where it’s going every step of the way, but it’s always interesting. The hero’s dull; the good gal is tiresome and unsympathetic, but the villain’s great - and the real star, the lighting, makes it prime B &W World material.
That'll do. Grocery matches await your inspection, and I'll see you around. |
