Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
Well, today was.......can you guess it?.......another day of rain (oh boy!). Are we sick of it yet, lol? Well anyway, we are supposed to get a break tomorrow and maybe for the weekend too before the another big storm rolls in next week. Sub-Zero is back tonight, too, with the clearing sky, and so we have the heat turned up here at Pearl's. On the plus side, we haven't seen this many green lawns in years, and there is green everywhere. Might be snow on the tops of the San Gabriels, too, after tonight.
All of this will of course cause me to savor even more the Days Of Summer ahead, and the attendant 113 degree temps.... :)
But wow, we are really getting a lot of water, which is how it always works in California. We never get it - and then we get it all at once.
I liked your photo of Sarah this afternoon, and in this case the lens flare acts like a frame within the frame. It isolates her with her guitar and once again the look of concentration. You can turn your Lens Flare Addiction into a trademark! Just keep experimenting with it, and try all kinds of angles and leverages to get all kinds of flares and artifacts. As I've said, I myself was very big on that, when I was shooting film and using an SLR. One of these days I will get another SLR, but also - I have gotta shoot more film. It takes some willpower to do so, because digital has made things so easy, but I am gonna resolve right here to shoot at least......(how many should I say?)........well, let's say at least three rolls of film this year. I know that's not many, but it's better than zero, and if I do three, then I will advance on it next year.
Today, same schedule as in recent rainy days. Tonight's movie was "The Big Red One", as in the numeral "1", which was a major WW2 film released in 1980 and directed by Samuel Fuller, of whom I have been on a recent kick. This movie was one of the last big budget, expansive WW2 films made. At the time, war films were transitioning into Vietnam, and in 1979 "Apocalypse Now" had come out and blown everyone off the map, especially myself, so when "Big Red" came out a year later - by a director I hadn't heard of at the time - I figured it was just a throwback to the earlier style, and I never saw it, even though it got a lot of critical acclaim.
But, as I've been on a Sam Fuller kick, I finally had to see it, and it was quite good, almost a masterpiece in it's way, as a slog through the entire timeline of combat of the European Theater in WW2. The action follows a single unit, mainly four soldiers who have a knack for not getting killed, and their grizzled Sergeant played by the great Lee Marvin. The acting has remnants of the cliched semi-cheesiness of war films made in the 40s and 50s, and there are scenes of soldierly heroics that are Hollywoodized and therefore not realistic. War films would get extremely realistic later in the 1980s with "Platoon" especially, but all in all I would put "The Big Red One" up there with the better WW2 films I've seen, mostly for it's epic narrative and for Lee Marvin's great performance. Not as classic as "The Longest Day" or "Battle Of The Bulge", but still very well done, and I am glad I finally saw it. Now I've gotta find more WW2 films that I haven't seen!
Yeah, I know........War Movies.
It's kind of a Guy Thing, I suppose. In my case, my Dad was involved in the Allied Invasion of Europe, and he came up through North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia - and then across the Mediterranean into Sicily and then Italy, just like in the movie. Dad was not in combat, but was part of a Radar Unit protecting the Air Force, but as a kid I heard all about his travels with the military through these countries during the war, and it has fascinated me ever since.
But anyhow......
I trust that your work on your music is coming along well, and all other projects too.
I saw a pic on FB of the Strandberg guy (Ola?) with a guitarist named Alex Machachek. He is a fairly well known jazz/progressive guitarist who plays regularly here in LA at a famous jazz club called The Baked Potato. I guess he plays a Strandberg too.
And I suppose that's all I know for today. :)
I will see you in the morning, SB. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Fingers crossed for Sun.
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