Lost In Translation

Hawaii Lanikai Part One

The guest bedroom in my friend Bill's rental house near Lanikai Beach.

And the view from the balcony in the guest room.

Kitchen.

The dinning room and its balcony.

A view from the slightly elongated Pillbox Hike, we started from the exit and exited from the entrance-most people just go the Pilboxes and return to the entrance. It was rated easy, I found it challenging especially in the mud after a heavy rain.

The second Pill Box.

The first Pillbox.

On the beach after the hike.

Peaky Blinders

Peaky Blinders is a British TV series based on a criminal gang in Birmingham, England in the 20s. Cillian Murphy plays the family boss Tommy Shelby and his enemy is Chester Campbell (played by Sam Neil). He was sent there by Winston Churchill to clean up the city of communists, gangs and common criminals. He plants a an undercover agent and Ulster Protestant Irish woman, Grace (Annabella Wallis). She was undercover as a barmaid at The Garrison. It has great production values and a strong ensemble cast with a story line  based on historical events. The soundtrack is heavy on the Nick Cave and overall draws to mind HBO's prohibition era drama Boardwalk Empire. Looking forward to seeing the next three seasons.

Nashville Part Two

It was cold, wet rainy day so I opted to check out Pinewood Social, which has brunch on weekends until 3 pm. It's also a cool space to chill out for a few hours while waiting for the rain to die down.

I had the Croque Madame (sunny side, french ham, gruyère, mornay, fries)-it hit the spot.

The Country Music Museum, the line was too long on a rainy day-so gave it a miss.

The Johnny Cash Museum was more interesting than I thought it would be. There was a section on other Sun recording artists and there was  a film about Cash's TV and film roles.

Martin's BBQ Joint for some brisket with mac and cheese and potato salad.

Getting up much earlier than usual-waited for a local cafe, The Terminal Cafe, to open at 8:00 am for the egg and bacon on a biscuit sandwich-worth the wait.

The bathroom decoration indicate my next destination.

Then coffee and the paper at Ugly Mugs.

The lunch later, smoked turkey at Butchertown Hall.

The next venue was Bearded Iris.

Back to East Nashville for dinner at Rosepepper Cantina.

Playback

Playback (1958) is Raymond Chandler's seventh Philip Marlowe book and his last completed novel. It is yet another entertaining tale of mystery and deception with witty dialogue.Here are some choice samples:

“She put a hard-boiled sneer on her face and gave me plenty of time to get used to it”

“There was nothing to it. The Super Chief was on time, as it almost always is, and the subject was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.”

“I wouldn't say she looked exactly wistful, but neither did she look as hard to get as a controlling interest in General Motors.”

"I picked up the key and my suitcase and left them. A little more of that and I'd be falling in love with myself."

The later Chandler novels seem to be more racy as the sex is clearly spelled out instead of alluded to. This one seems to have a fairly easy to follow plot narrative, although the solution to the crime is something of a stretch in my mind. That being said I am kind of sad that I've read all his novels-I guess it's time to complete the novels of Dashiell Hammett or find a new hardboiled author to follow.

Dirty Money

The new Nexflix documentary series Dirty Money has some very interesting episodes in the first season. In the first episode Alex Gibney looks at the VW scandal in which the company risked tens of thousands of lives -- for the sake of a $500 part. The second episode looked at the predatory nature of pay day loan companies. Episode three looked at the price hiking of drug companies like Vaelant that buys companies and cuts research and development while raising prices to raise the stock value. Episode four centers on HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, accountable for decades of laundering money for Mexican drug cartels. I wasn't so interested in "The Maple Syrup Heist" about the  battle between cartels and the "little guy." The final episode may be the most interesting since it focuses on Trump's finances. I'm looking forward to subsequent episodes.

Nashville Part One

Inside my charming Air BnB apartment in East Nashville.

Vinyl Tap is just down the street from where I am staying and has records and craft beer.

Local craft beer, Dark Matter IPA from Blackstone.

Southern Grist Brewing Company has a tap room across the street from Vinyl Tap.

Inside Rosemary.

Five Points Pizza came highly recommend.

Three Crow Bar.

Pepperfire Hot Chicken three piece with crinkle fries and potato salad.

Downtown Nashville.

Merchants Restaurant downtown.

Crayfish gumbo.

Tonight's concert She's A Rebel: A Girl Group Tribute.

Bourbon Street Blues And Boogie Bar.

Mother!

Darren Aronofsky's Mother! (2017) was one of the most decisive films of 2017. It seems people either loved it or hated it-I have to say I wasn't so effected-I thought it was OK. I understand what he was trying to do, but I didn't think it was so original or interesting. Jennifer Lawrence does a great job in her roles as do the other principal actors-Javier Bardem, who plays her soul sucking writer husband, Ed Harris as a dying rabid fan who invites himself to stay in their house and brings his uninvited wife, Michele Pfeiffer, to the house. I saw this on the plane, which I do not think is ideal for this film since much of it is filmed with a dark background.

So Close To Life

Ingmar Bergman's early career film So Close To Life (1958) is a showcase for several female actors. The Ingrid Thulin character has a miscarriage, which reflects her loveless marriage to Erland Josephson; the runaway teenager Bibi Andersson is not married and fears she's not ready for the responsibility of bringing up a child on her own; Eva Dahlbeck is the most ready for a child as she gushes with joy in her happy marriage and wants one.  The actresses won a join acting award at Cannes that year. It is also a very much like a play in that all the action happens in one location, the baby ward in a hospital. Overall, it is pretty grim-characteristic of many Bergman films.

Orange County 2018 Part Two

In celebration of the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl victory an Original Philly Cheesteak sandwich from From Philly.

The Camp is another interesting group of shops and restaurants across the street from Anti Mall in Costa Mesa, I think I'll be back soon to eat there.

I went down to San Clemente to meet an old Spokane friend, Lara-last time we met was four years ago in Italy!

A pepperoni pizza pinwheel from Sgt. Pepperoni's Pizza Store.

Craft beer and nachos at Taco Asylum.

Testing IPAs at Gunwale Ales Brewery.

The Best American Short Stories 1993

I recently came upon a copy of The Best American Short Stories 1993 edited by Louise Erdrich. One interesting aspect of the collection is that Erdich didn't arrange the stories by alphabetical order like usual. She starts the collection off with John Updike's "Playing With Dynamite"-noting that he usually comes last in these collections. I am a fan of Updike but haven't read anything by him in years and this story made little impression on me. Unlike the second story, Mary Gaitskill's "The Girl on the Plane," which feels more relevant today than in 1993. It is the story of a man who while talking with a woman who is a stranger admits to having raped a woman he loved as a young man-it is evocative of the messy sexuality of people while young and under the influence of alcohol in the age of the "Me, too!" movement. The author notes in the back gives the author opportunities to comment on the stories (another feature I don't remember seeing in this collection before). There was something of negative reaction in which readers thought she was endorsing gang rape, to which she states: "Why would an adult look to me or any writer to tell him or her what to feel?" It was interesting to see that Alice Munro found inspiration from her lengthy short story "A Real Life" from her reading about Albanian Virgins in the early 20th century who were treated like males as long as they didn't have sex. I was intrigued by Harlan Ellison's short story, "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore," because some of my college friends were fans of Ellison, whose writing is usually characterized as Science Fiction a genre I haven't been found of since adolescence. And it it felt very post modern in the narrative style that was playful and telling of Eilison's attitudes against things such as racism or fascism. I was also impressed with Thom Jones' story, "I Want To Live!", about a older woman dying of cancer that was based on Jones' experience with his mother-in-law. He even manages to bring Schopenhauer into the story-well-done. I also quite enjoyed Tony Earley's "Charlotte" a story about love, pro wrestling, and the Charlotte Hornets-very postmodern. Kim Edwards's story "Gold" was set in Malaysia, where she had lived briefly. And Diane Johnson's story "Great Barrier Reef" was based on an actual trip she took and gets at how traveling can be transformative: "Of course it wasn't the prize--only a little key chain, after all--that had cured me, but the process of the voyage, and the mysterious power of distant places to dissolve the problems the traveler has brought along." I was pleasantly surprised how funny and poignant Lorrie Moore's "Terrific Mother" was-one of my favorites in the collection. The fictional narrative of the author's father, Mary Gordon, was the subject of another standout, "The Important Houses." All in all this collection was somewhat uneven despite having a number of excellent stories-I did skip more than a few.