A Slight Chill, A Blustery Wind

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6:14

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Up before 6:00 to a light blue sky, a touch of orange at the horizon, a chill in the air, 43º, compared to yesterday's high in the 70's.  I am listening to Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favorite novelists, being interviewed about his new novel THE BURIED GIANT, on the 75h Avenue Project.  I will summarize some of his ideas in my last paragraph in case any one is interested.   When I stepped outside to take a photograph at 6:00, I was able to see/hear a bass boat racing around Long Point. Fishing season has unofficially begun!  The bass boats are back.

Well,  I was up early yesterday, too, an exceptional morning dawn, ate my breakfast, got my blog done and was on the road to yoga by 8:40 only to find out it was cancelled.  How I missed the cancellation remains a mystery.  So, I stopped at Ryder's, bought a coffee and some fresh eggs (from Janice's hen house), then went to Wegman's to pick up a few things.  It was surprisingly busy at 9:15, especially checking out until I realized they only had four lines open.  Besides groceries, I bought Evie a bouquet of flowers, being the good husband that I am.

Kayaks Ready

When I got home, Evie had made some lemons squares and done some prepping for tonight's dinner when we are having friends over.  So she was ready to kayak because the lake was glass like and inviting.  So we quickly got our boats in the water and paddled towards Tom's Point only to realize half way there that the wind had picked up demonstrably, so we headed back in to the headwind, struggling some.  We never learn; we need to get out on the water earlier before the mid morning wind picks up.  But it was still energizing to be out on the lapis lazuli blue lake,  about the only boats on the lake.  After kayaking,  I headed to the Transfer Station, de riguer, and met some out our neighbors, the Johnstons.  Lunch was easy, a couple of Sahlen hot dogs with Stadium mustard.

Fire Department Testing at Marina

The afternoon was luxurious, in the high 70's, a warm sun, a chaise lounge and a good book.  Evie happily enjoyed two or three hours reading and doing nothing for once.  I joined her but I soon got bored and went in to watch some golf and the NBA playoffs on TV.  They soon became boring so back outside I went to enjoy the outdoors and read DAWN PATROL.  That's how we spent yesterday afternoon until it was time to prep for dinner.

I woke up yesterday morning wanting Chinese, so I picked up the bok choy, bean sprouts,  ginger, some mushrooms,  at Wegman's and at 6:00, we got busy chopping vegetables, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, putting together sauces and by 6:45 we had a Sezchuan chicken, with peanuts, hot bean sauce and lots of vegetables, our favorite way.  It was good but not great as I can never get the seasoning quite right; it's always a bit bland.  Perhaps it needs that old Chinese magic: Aji-no-moto (MSG).

I could not find the DVD from Netflix; I hope I did not lose it so we watched IDA, a Polish film which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Picture.  It's appropriately filmed in black and white, set in Stalinist Poland in the 1960's, the  tragic story of a young woman discovering her family's past.  Anna, an orphan, and now a catholic novitiate, is about to become a nun.  She is sent out by the Mother Superior, to experience life, make sure her vows are genuine (not quite Sound of Music).  She goes to stay with her Aunt Wanda, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, irreparably damaged by her past.  From Wanda, Anna learns her real name is Ida Lubenstein,  her family Jewish and  they were massacred by their Polish neighbors in the 1940's.  The two of them journey back to her parent's home, talk with the families, and find out who murdered Anna's parents and Wanda's sister.  They eventually find where the family was buried, and the perpetrator digs up the  grave site.  Wanda picks out a skull and only then do we realize that she had sent her son to Poland to escape the Nazis only to have him also murdered.  The two then go to a Jewish cemetery, bury the skull and Anna returns to the convent.  She, then,  returns to her Aunt's apartment when she is notified that Wanda has committed suicide by jumping out of her apartment window.  After spending a few weeks in her aunt's apartment and tasting life, dressing up, going to restaurants, drinking alcohol, and having a brief affair, the film ends with her walking back towards the convent. To be confirmed or renounce her vows?  Slow, austere, silent, sad making, wonderfully acted and filmed, worth viewing but it leaves the viewer bereft, empty, a result of man's inhumanity to man.

Kazuo Ishiguro talks about the importance of societal vs individual memory and his novels raise the question: how much do we want to remember?  For example, memory often results in extreme violence such is what happened in Yugoslavia after Tito died.  THE BURIED GIANT, set in Arthurian England is about enforced amnesia, which brings about a peace.

Is forgetfulness essential for healing, even necessary for peace.  Ishiguro plays with the tension between remembering and forgetting...which is preferable?  Should we, Americans,  forget about our sordid history of slavery? Should we ignore or forget the Native Americans genocide (or winning the West)?  Or should we bring them more out in the open, at attempt at some kind of reconciliation (like what happened in South Africa).  Or would  revisiting these terrible historic periods bring more anger, hatred, and violence, not reconciliation and peace?

Most of his novels deal with self deception, the war over what's true, the need for delusion or hope. Our fate is inevitably sad (we must die), yet his novels are optimistic;  we go on, we endure, and often try to be decent to each other.

He ends the interview by suggesting that much of his choices as an artist are intuitive, unable to explain.  This line, this point of view, just sounds better, hard to put into words.