Spring cinema, and travel

A weekend's worth of library materials from the Phoenicia Lib:

Beginning to research our later autumn-early winter trip to Colombia: intended destinations are Cartagena and Barranquilla. We ain't Moon people, but information is important; that book gave me a lot of information.

The Old Man & the Gun wasn't worth making, and if anyone other then Robert Redford pitched that turkey I can't imagine that dud being made. I kept thinking and saying if this thing doesn't improve in ten more minutes, forget it. I turned it off after an hour, and rue the wasted time. I ain't getting any younger, and that film was a waste of my time.

The Man who never was I first watched several years ago, and enjoyed, or remembered so (perhaps I thought I remembered so). I found it indirectly, having read a novel by David Ignatius (a brilliant reporter and excellent writer); his epigram quoted, I believe, a phrase by (book was Body of Lies, which I found easily with a web search) Ewen Montagu. Soem memories are best left undisturbed.

Independence Day is from 1996, when women still wore big shoulder pads in their jackets. It's 2½ hours long, about an hour longer than it should've been. Its hokey dialogue would get a film student reprimanded by an instructor tired of hearing clichés and truisms. I finished it, and didn't rue it.

I didn't watch First Man; this is the second time I've taken it out of the library and not watched it. I think I detect a pattern.

East Elmhurst QBPL

Went looking for another Queens Library branch, and it was closed. At least I got lunch, and I found yet one more street named after a rather obscure Civil War general.

Tenochititlan is a little bodega on Astoria Boulevard; I'd seen its canopy some weeks ago, and made a point of going back to check it. I ordered a taco and a quesadilla. This is, for lack of a better term, real Mexican food, not Taco Bell. They might even have pressed the tortilla from masa right then. I was already hungry, and got a little impatient, but bided my time. That was a wise decision; it was food waiting for: the taco was pretty good, the quesadilla superb. Eight bucks for both.

 I parked on the north side of Astoria Boulevard, not far from the street named for General Andrew Atkinson (A.A.) Humphreys. Not a major figure, but remembered. Noted, anyway.

I went to the QBPL branch, even knowing it was closed (why remains a mystery)

I had wanted to visit the Trolley Car Triangle, but didn't: rush hour was creeping up, schools were about to let out, and I skipped it. I did get this picture (no, I wasn't driving; I had stopped for a red light).

Why this neighborhood is named East Elmhurst remains a mystery. I shall endeavor to solve that.

Woodside

The 7 train runs along and over Roosevelt Avenue in north-central Queens. Small shops line the street from Corona to Sunnyside (at which point the Avenue disappears, to reappear on the other side of Queens Boulevard as Greenpoint Avenue, bound for Brooklyn).

 At 53rd Street, where there is more light under the street as Roosevelt is wider than the elevated tracks (notice the sunshine on the sidewalk), there's a Peruvian-Mexican grocery.

Continuing east (I was riding the Q32 bus), there's Peking BBQ, a Chinese-Peruvian restaurant; next to it is Rico Pan, a bakery & cafeteria (probably Colombian), and (just visible) The beerkeeper

On east,not very clear because of the raindrops on the bus window, Tibet Kitchen (and Friends Corner Cafe).

I got off the bus at 82nd Street, bought a couple of empanadas and a bottle of cold water, and found a place to sit for a few minutes. Done, I walked up to the 82nd Street station, to catch a 7 train back to Flushing.

When I watch las noticias locales, I often see commercials for Ginarte (lawyers).

 And this is an urban scape, from the platform of the train station:

Back on Main Street I went to Xi'an Famous foods, got a couple of snacks (great food, from easter China; great value), and ambled back home. Poor GW, not even a plaque. Steinbeck has a plaque, Sherman a gilded statue and George Washington? zilch. Well, a bridge, yeah, but where he actually lived? Nuthin'

Lost in plain sight

Among all the statues and landmarks, I ran across this memorial marker in Central Park:

It is not easy to notice it, but I did. The obvious question is, who was he? A search does not produce obvious results. Find-a-grave seems to have the answer: though it is not st all detailed. I can find nothing much to clear up what shall remain a mystery.

Jeopardy and Puzzles

After watching it ceaselessly, a few years ago I stopped watching Jeopardy (perhaps too much of a good thing, the way that piece of chocolate you talk yourself into having despite having had enough already). I went back, of course. Jeopardy isn't only a game show, and it isn't just a television program; it is a way to test yourself, and a way to enjoy knowing how much you know and a way to challenge yourself to know yet more. It is an indulgence.

A few weeks ago I got onto the internet and looked up something about it, and found reference to a book entitled Prisoner of Trebekistan in the Wikipedia article about the show. It was fun to read, for the most part; it also made me cringe, and not just for how obsessive Bob Harris got, but also at my own preoccupation with the show.

Puzzle I found on the shelves of my local library, last Friday, when I went looking for films to watch. I had never heard of it. Perhaps someone who watches Jeopardy obsessively enjoys this quirky film more then other people. Quirky understates matters: for the first three quarters of an hour so very little happens that I found myself wanting to turn it off. Yet something told me to be patient. Quite suddenly a lot happens, hurtling across the screen with a reciprocal hurry to the slowness of the first half. The acting is wonderful. It's worth watching. I enjoyed it.

I didn't bother with the other two films.

Chichester cinema

Took these films from the Phoenicia Library when I finally got upstate that Friday afternoon. I had never heard of Brooklyn Castle; it's a film about New York City middle and high school kids who play chess, specifically in IS 138, in Brooklyn. It isn't only a film about chess and how good kids can play that game, but it is also a morality tale of how cruel adults can get when they put their minds to it, cutting school budgets at the same time corporations get tax breaks. The kids are amazing (nom, the adults aren't).

Muscle Shoals is about rock and roll: Wilson Picket and Aretha, Duane Allman, Percy Sledge and a bunch of white boys who comprised one of the greatest rock and roll rhythm sections ever. It is also about human ambition and greed, jealousy and weakness and strength. A damned good film.

Genius is about Maxwell Perkins and Thomas Wolfe. Excellent acting. Very good film, not as good the second time around, but still fine.