DAWN SKIES

6:31

6:34

6:49

7:24

As you can tell from my blog, I never tire of taking pictures of the morning sky, either from my porch, when the leaves have fallen and the lawn is snow filled, or from the lake's edge, as I did this morning.  The sky is never the same, constantly changing even from minute to minute as today's pictures show; they are taken perhaps ten minutes apart, each time drawing me outside to take another shot. Even now I am tempted as the sun has peaked through the clouds, filling the living room, almost blinding me as I sit writing.  What a difference from this morning when I arose, about 5:30, to a pitch black sky, lit solely by a misty, cloudy moon.  It was 48 degrees outside when I got up, a fall sky, as you can see, and the fisherman in the cottages were stirring, ready to launch their boats as it seems there is a tournament this weekend.

We watched the Ed Helms movie CEDAR RAPIDS Wednesday night, for some odd reason, then found THE REMAINS OF DAY last night on Showtime, a movie I have seen at least five times.  What a difference, one vulgar, stupid, idiotic, perfect for today's  puerile audience, I suppose, the other thoughtful, slow moving, intelligent, wonderfully acted, directed and shot, with not a hint of sex or violence, yet poignant, filled with irony, as Stevens, the butler, slowly realizes his life has been a sham.  It's almost too terrible to watch, as he slowly becomes aware of his master's Nazi sympathies, the weakness of his code, the emptiness of his life without love.  What a wonderful movie, even a better book (I have taught it at least three or four times).  And to watch it after CEDAR RAPIDS is like the difference between potty talk at a day care center and learned, adult conversation in a college classroom.