This strangely beautiful image comes from today’s NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day. It is of radio waves coming from near the center of our galaxy.
For a better explanation:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
We finally bought a TV for Hilton Head. It is a very nice TV with a large and vivid screen. I must confess that I am enjoying watching the videos of GANNET’s voyage on it. However too often the YouTube feed after presenting me with several of my videos throws in one about someone making their first crossing of the Atlantic or maybe cruising in the Caribbean. Obviously the algorithm and those behind it can’t discriminate between us. When the computer people take over the world—if they already haven’t—there will be no place for originals, because originals are beyond their experience and imagination.
I hesitated at ‘computer people’. I don’t like ‘nerds’ and I may be the only one who knows that the original meaning of ‘geek’ was a carnival performer whose act consisted of biting off the heads of live chickens.
However the other evening the stream of my videos had an unexpected and welcome interruption, Brian Cockburn’s music to one of my poems, ‘Leaves of Men of Leaves.’
Brian composed this some years ago and I must confess I have largely forgotten it. It was nice to hear it again and see the sheet music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBw2C7PzBqY
Larry sent me a link to a list of ‘Eleven Things You Wouldn’t Believe About These Countries.”
Well I not only believe them, I already knew many. But I was not aware of Number 1. The Country with the most people in prisons is the United States with 2.2 million. China is second with 1.5 million, but out of a population four times larger than the US. Russia is third with 870,00. I wonder what we are so afraid of?
I was recently writing to a friend about THE UNDERDOGS, a fine novel about the Mexican Revolution written by a doctor who served in one of the armies. As far as I know all revolutions are betrayed, including in our time our own.
Last evening I rewatched one of my favorite movies of all time, the Australian, WALKABOUT. I have admired it since it was first released fifty years ago.
Walkabout is the Aboriginal trial of youth to manhood in which a teen age boy is sent out to live alone off the land for an indefinite length of time.
In the film a white sister and brother find themselves stranded in the Outback. She is a teenager. Her brother younger. I am not going to explain how they got there because that is a startlingly dramatic scene. After some time on their own they encounter an Aboriginal on his Walkabout. He helps them survive and leads them back to ‘civilization.’
The Aboriginal and the girl are about the same age. There is sexual tension between them. I will not say how it is resolved, or even if it is.
The movie is beautifully filmed. There are contrasting images of the implacable survival of species native to the Outback. There are images of Eden before the fall innocence, such as when all three of them swim naked in a pool of water.
Here is a link to what I consider a just review by Roger Ebert. I suggest you read it after watching the film, not before.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-walkabout-1971
I own the DVD, but you can rent WALKABOUT from Amazon and iTunes, among others.
The current issue of BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE has an article about Jascha Heifetz which concludes
The last load of laundry is in the dryer.
I am still not quite myself, but I’m getting close. I have done an extensive amount of housework these past two days, and I am now ready to fly away tomorrow for a month or so.
To Life.
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