Great Baseball Photos Revisited -- Kung Fu Panda

With credit due to the Guardian newspaper --

Giants mash.  A romp.  Baseball as rock show.

The Food Season III: A Short Story 'The Night Out'

We walk down a street.  We do not talk, both stare down at feet or way ahead.  Constant, heavy traffic whips by, the sound from the rain slicked street is incessant.  The spray does not reach us but we are both soaked.  The umbrella is almost useless.  The rain slants with the wind.  Raindrops big as grapes pepper us.

It is a fight, an argument.  One said something and the other got angry.  And now we are not talking, steaming.  And now it is raining.  Hard.  We are both hungry.  Neither of us wants to be with the other.  It is dark, cold.  We are wet, hungry, unhappy.  It is depressing, oppressive.  Each of us, secretly, want simply to turn away and go off alone, leave the other, disappear.  But we don’t.  Some times this can last days, some days hours.  It is a street we've walked many times.

“Are you hungry,” I ask, knowing the answer will be a shrug.  She shrugs, which means 'yes, but I am so pissed I would rather die than admit I want to eat.'  We keep walking, slogging.  She is almost crying.  I am a knot.  I want to throw up I am so mad upset pissed off.  We just walk.

We pass a few okay restaurants but do not even slow down.  We know each other.  We may be frustrated, angry, hungry, wet, depressed.  But.  We like our food.  A bad meal or a bad place would be worse than the misery on the street. 

Finally, across the street, past the flying cars kicking up clouds of mist, there is a busy room behind a picture window.  The glass is steamed but through the window comes a light.  It is warm, not bright.  Through the fogged-glass we see a man hard at work playing a piano, occasionally pulling on a cigarette.  Tall waitresses in black pants, white blouses and long white aprons race through the room, around the crowded tables, with trays stacked high.  A man near the window pulls on his beer.  She nudges me.  I nod.

We jog across the street and push into the room.  Welcomed warmly.  No reservation but not a problem.  ‘Why don’t you wait at the bar,’ we are asked.  Fine with us.  We sit at the long bar and have a drink, don’t talk but are done with the fight.  The hostess brings us a kitchen towel I watch my wife wipe her hair with the towel, which makes me laugh.  She smiles.  Familiar.  I am smart enough not to ask her to say she is sorry.  I order two more drinks.

We fall into a deep conversation and before we know it we are asked if we’d mind, there is a table in the back by the kitchen doors, not usually used, but it’ll be a long wait if we don’t want this small table in the back.  They like us.  It's nice, being here.  We go look and the table is fine.  We don’t mind.  We sit down with our drinks.  We watch the servers fly in and out of the kitchen; when the double-hinged doors swing open it is like a portal to another world; we glance at the line, watching the chaos and the shouting in the heat of a bustling kitchen.

Our waitress comes up.  She is sweet and smart.  She smiles with her eyes and brings us warm bread and menus before we are settled.  We have our drinks from the bar and order mussels in a broth of wine and garlic and butter.  We dunk warm bread into the sauce.  We finish our drinks and order a bottle of red wine.  We can barely hear the piano over the talking and the occasional burst of talking and shouting which flows from the kitchen when the door swings open.  And the kitchen team is listening to something loud and fast; when the door swings shut the music swings back to gentle jazz of the piano in the bar.  Door opens to the kitchen and a wall of guitars rail.  It is funny.

We order our meal, the waitress answering questions and steering us to this or that. 

The room swallows us and we talk through roasted lamb, curried chicken, crisp roasted potatoes, perfectly sautéed spinach in lemon sauce, an asparagus and wild mushroom thing that tastes like melted gold.  Somewhere during the meal we order another bottle of a good red wine, dry and round and blood-red.  Not cheap but not not cheap.

We both eat – no picking at the edges of the plate.  We both tuck in.  When the plates go away they are shiny-white; we joke the chef could take the plates, reload them with a fresh meal and send them back into the room.  She says 'I am sorry.'  I smile and say 'me too.'  that's it.
Later, the waitress slides a slice of pie between us and says ‘it’s on me.  Welcome.’  We share.  We never share.  And then we order another desert, a warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, and two glasses of a liquor the waitress recommends to join the pie.  It is like a treacley drug, warming our throats and we feel it take off inside.  A good drunk.  We are hours in and no time has passed.  We laugh about the fight.  We are drunk, drunk, drunk and have no intention of leaving.  We talk and talk.  Finally, we drink oil dark coffee. 

We sit and hold hands across the table.  The waitress drops the check on the table and smiles.  Says as long as they don't lock the door not to worry.  When finally our table is cleared the room is quiet.  The rain has stopped. The staff are winding up now, talking.  When the doors swing open Reggae blares from the kitchen and the shouting now is in Spanish.

If we had not found this place the fight would have lasted two days, maybe longer, I can tell.  As it is, we found the place.  The fight is gone.  What can we say?  We like our food.  We love good places.  We know each other.

We make up the pie in the tip.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Pushing Boulders Up Hills

Our high school ski team dragged an old truck engine to the top of a hill.

The idea came from our coach, George Woodard, who did not ski but knew how to farm and tinker.  We hauled the engine up the hill to build a rope tow.  The rope tow was George’s idea to improve access to the top of our ski jump.  This was back when Vermont high schools allowed teenagers to jump, and maybe George couldn’t ski but he knew less walking meant more practice. 

Harwood Union has a small hill behind the school.  At the time, it’d been converted into a jump; a short, steep pitch with a huge dirt headwall carved into the middle of the slope.  The headwall had a kicker.  We’d sail off it. 

Walking up that hill to practice was hard work.  The long wood skis, built like barrel staves, wide as floorboards, were mounted with old steel telemark cable bindings.  Industrial.  The skis weighed a ton.  The ancient leather boots weighed, oh, one hundred pounds dry, one-fifty wet.  Throwing skis as long as small trees onto teenaged shoulders and walking up a hill wearing wet moon boots.  As I say, hard work.  So we all thought George was onto something.  Moving a rusted, ancient, gigantic, iron Ford Model A engine to the top of the hill seemed a small price to pay to avoid the hike. 

George mounted the engine on a wooden timber frame.  The frame probably weighed more than the motor.  Angled at the front with two big ropes attached, the frame was really a massive, heavy sled.  The plan was to haul the motor on the sled to the top of the jump.

The sled and engine sat on the grass behind the school while we waited for winter.  When it did finally snow, big wet flakes laying down a foot of base, we were excited for the job.  Like Egyptian slaves we grabbed the harnesses.  We dragged the sled to the base of the hill.  Dragging across flat ground itself was near impossible.  Exhausted from this small effort, and we hadn’t really done anything yet.  The hill was incredibly steep.  What we were doing was insane.

Which was perfect.  It was perfect because letting us jump with little instruction and old gear was insane.  And not only the jumping was crazy.  Landing was crazy.  The outrun to one jump we competed on took us across a small road.  A teacher was stationed at the road both to pile some snow on the dirt track and to shout when cars came, although there was no stopping so I don’t know what the teacher would have done if a car roared up when a kid came screaming down.  The base of another jump crossed a stream by way of a narrow wooden bridge.  Thread the needle over the bridge or end up in the water. 

Getting to the top of some jumps was also crazy.  The depression-era trellises, stacked high on hills, were coming to the end of their lives.  The trellis jump in Lyndonville leaned like Pisa and moved measurably in the wind.  There was no stair, just a steep incline with small, worn wooden slats for toeholds.  Dead of winter, wearing moon boots, carrying the weight of a cross and climbing in a wind with the whole thing swaying under foot, getting to the summit of the Lyndonville jump was a sport of its own. 

And then there was the jumping.  None of us were very good.  We were unschooled.  Our gear was from the Great War.  If success was overcoming sheer terror we were Olympians.  

But sometimes it went just right.  Point the skis, hurtle like an arrow toward the headwall; leap forward when you hit the lip; skis come up, body leans forward into the sky, and for one or two beats of the heart the skis lift, you lift.  You fly.  The rope tow was a chance to fly.

Hard work, dragging a truck engine to the top of a hill.  We tugged and slipped and fell.  We were soon soaked and covered in mud, exhausted.

Near the top someone noticed frozen rotting apples hanging from gnarled trees. Between the wet snow and the apples we abandoned the sled and launched an epic snowball and apple fight.  As it always is, one team member almost lost an eye, taking an apple right in the glasses.  Another I think broke his nose.  There was blood in the snow.

After the apple fight we finished the job, putting the sled in position.  We stood there, soaked, cold, battered, maybe a bit proud.  We stood in the gloam of a late-fall afternoon.  George pulled a key out of his overall pocket, wrapped cold fingers around the key, put it in the ignition, turned it.

I was brought back to all this a few days ago.  I was reading an article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker about Albert Camus.  Camus - philosopher, writer, resistance hero - wrote about Sisyphus, a man who defied the Gods and was condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it perpetually fall back down. 

Camus argues Sisyphus was condemned to nothing worse than life; we all spend a lifetime rolling rocks up hills only to have them tumble back down.  Gopnik sums it up this way: “learning to roll the boulder while keeping at least a half smile on your face is the only way to act decently while accepting that acts are always essentially absurd.” 

As Jonah Hill’s character says in Moneyball, ‘it’s a metaphor.’ 

We probably should have tested the engine before we dragged it up the hill.  It would not run.  The block was cracked.  Back down the hill we walked. I bet the engine sits there still.

What a day, the day we sledged a truck engine to the top of a hill.  It is the trying, I guess, which makes us smile.  

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

The Food Season II: Cooking For Friends During The Dark Months

            Second piece on meals.  I still cook the chicken cutlets with long pasta I first new in Ernestine Rocchio's kitchen.  The smell when I cook that meal takes me right back to being a kid with his grandparents.

I know my love of cooking for friends comes from there.  Shopping for food and drink, prep-time with the radio playing, working hard right up until everyone arrives.  It is important.  It is how I connect.  

Small groups, up to eight, are best but I have fed twenty.  And we have a small house.  I like sauces and working with very hot pans.  I worked a line in college, late 1970’s and early 1980’s, at a pretty good fine American cuisine restaurant, called Dillon’s, where the owner/chef tipped the line cooks out with drugs and talked a lot about how Hawaii was better than Vermont.  It was odd but he was a very good cook.  He was a very tough boss.  I learned a lot on that line.  A lot.  And I learned a lot from my Gram.  And I have been cooking now a long time.  
I think the insight that made me confident in the kitchen, and is based on nothing more than having done it a long time, is cooking is chemistry.  You heat something up and it changes.  You heat a combination of things up and they change differently.  You learn what to heat up when, how hot, what to add when, how hot, and you become a good cook.  So I am comfortable firing foods and making meals.

Cooking in winter is in many ways the best.  Our bodies are looking for rich, fatty foods.  It is dark out.  There's nothing else to do.  It is cold out.  It is warm in a working kitchen.

I like to cook thin pieces of meat in hot hot oil on a stove, adding maybe some good soy sauce, white wine, mushrooms, lemon, maybe breading the meat or rolling it first in flour and egg.  I like making pan sauces, especially tomato sauce, which starts with olive oil, garlic, onion, a can of anchovies, adding meatballs or mushrooms or sausage or roasted peppers.  Other sauces I love to make are simple:  garlic, oil, pepper; roll meat, maybe chicken thighs or lamb bits or stew meat into it; add white wine (and fight with wife over using good wine for cooking); cover the sauce once the meat is brown; uncover it and add salt, pepper, cumin, fennel seed, who knows.  Let the sauce boil off a bit, add more wine (maybe lemon depending on what else is in there), serve it. 

In winter I aslo like to roast meats and root vegetables.  I’ll stuff a chicken with pretty much anything lying around the kitchen.  No two hens ever come out the same.  One favorite approach to roasting a chicken: I rub olive oil onto the bird’s skin, spackle it with salt and pepper, curry powder or other savory spices, stuff it with aging oranges or lemons or pears (or all three) and place the chicken into the extremely hot cavern of our oven with spanish onions all around it in the pan.  I cook it for ten minutes at temperatures reserved for reentering spacecraft and then turn the flame down to just under four hundred degrees Fahrenheit.  You can almost hear the bird cook.  When it is done it tastes sweet and crisp and rich.  The onion caramelizes and melts.

We buy a half cow from a friend and it sits in our Sears freezer in the basement.  The meat is lean and the steaks thick, red, delicious.  I cook the steaks outside on a wood fire.  I do this through the winter, at least until the snow covers over the stone firebox.  I love cooking steak over the open flame, watching it closely.  The wood smoke makes the cooked meat sweet.  I make the simplest of garlic breads over the same fire, a trick I learned from my Italian brother-in-law.  I take slices of baguette and toast them over the burning logs, grind raw garlic into the burnt toast and slather the toast with olive oil and salt.  That’s it. 

            The din during any dinner party in our house is a happy, satisfying sound.  I love to watch the conversation as one person is pulled in and another drops away; as some people laugh and others huddle and talk quietly; as stories get told; as it gets late and becomes a bit drunken.  We listen to some music, sometimes too loud, sometimes piped in low.  We drink a lot.

At one dinner party I made something new, which came out terrific.  I heated oil in a wok and added a can of anchovies, which dissolved to dust.  I added many, many chopped cloves of garlic.  I added some curry powder.  When the garlic was pulpy I tossed young squid into the hot mix.  The tentacles of the squid were cut into manageable bite-sized nests. I sliced the bodies into half-inch-wide tires and fired the squid in the oil.  As it roasted in the oil I added soy sauce and more curry.  The squid churned in the oil over a hot flame.  Occasionally I sloughed in good white wine.  As the wine boiled off I added more and more.  A bottle of good white wine ended up in the sauce.  It cooked for a long time on a low heat. 

We were all drunk when I finally served the squid.  I had no plates or small forks or toothpicks.  I had good French bread.  My friends dunked the bread in the broth and ate the squid with their bare hands.  It was messy and awkward but it was so damn good.  It all went.  We drifted to the table for dinner with burned, oiled fingers, already pretty much full, already a bit drunk.  It was a great night. 

            Some meals work better than others; some dinner parties are better than others.  I don’t know why.   Cooking is chemistry;  dinners are alchemy.  The music helps.  The alcohol helps.  People being comfortable with each other and themselves helps.  The look and feel of the room helps.  This is true whether the meal is in a home or at a restaurant.  Being with people you enjoy and being able to relax and eat.  I learned it in my Gram's kitchen.  It is the same here although completely different.  There is nothing new about cooking and eating good food with friends during the dark months.  It is I bet as old as the world.  

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

The Food Season I: Meals and Cooking On The Run Up To Thanksgiving

            My father’s mother rolled out homemade pasta.  She pounded the dough on the counter until it formed homogenized balls of fine flour, egg, water, salt and other dustings of I don’t know what.  She then rolled the mud-white balls into circle shaped parchments, sliced the flattened dough into strips with a small knife and settled the strips to dry all around the kitchen, on countertops, chair backs and tables.  My Great-Grandmother – Ma – helped and the two women worked together, mostly in silence, sometimes talking quietly.  The conversations were about this niece, that brother, some uncle or a cousin in Maine.  All family.

During the cooking my Grandfather sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee or beer, smoking cigarettes, not quite listening or watching, pretending to read the Providence Journal or Evening Bulletin.  I sat with him.  I was little.  I could sit for a lifetime in that kitchen.

In that sanctuary as the homemades dried the two women cooked other foods, all ancestrally Italian – this was still an Italian kitchen.  In it they made this or that:  red sauce with rolled beef; stuffed artichokes, squid, or shells; roasted chickens; breaded chicken cutlets; brown meatballs; fire-roasted peppers; big antipastos; escarole soup. 

I watched it all.  Uncles and aunts stopped by after dinner for coffee and pie.  Each Thanksgiving, falling asleep, full as a python, watching football in their living room.  Sitting around the Christmas table after the meal.  The red Christmas table cloth, speckled with gold thread, its surface dusted with crumbs, weighed down by pie plates, coffee cups, ashtrays.  The adults talking and smoking and drinking coffee.  Me sitting there eating my pie, watching. 

From today through the Tuesday before Thanksgiving I am going to post bits of an essay I wrote about remembered meals, eating with friends, the importance of food.  And I'll try to offer up a recipe although nothing so precise it will be helpful.  Here is the first one:

Chicken Cutlets

2 lbs. chicken breasts

2 cups or more dry bread crumbs

4 eggs

black pepper

good parmigiana cheese

salt

olive oil

garlic

making the batter

beat two eggs and add salt and pepper to taste.

on a plate spread half of the bread crumbs and mix in some grated cheese.

preparing and cooking the chicken

Start a quarter of an inch of virgin olive oil in a cast iron skillet and add some slices of garlic.

Fillet the chicken breasts quite thin and then beat the breasts with the side of a knife or with a kitchen mallet.

Dip the cutlets into the beaten egg mixture, dredge the cutlet through the bread crumb and cheese mix and dip the cutlet again in the egg batter.  You will need to pause half way through cooking to replenish both the egg batter and the bread crumb/cheese coating.

Fry each cutlet until the batter is brown and the chicken breast is white but still tender.

Eat it all yourself or it is a meal for four.  Terrific with a pasta with red sauce.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Movies from Toronto International Film Festival: A Volunteer's View

My friend Arlene Rogers is one of the army of volunteers working The Toronto International Film Festival each year.  She has been doing it for a very, very long time. How Arlene and I met is here.

I couldn’t be there this year so my friend Arlene sent me this list of what she saw and what she thought.  Most of these films won’t make it to where we live (if they get distributed at all) and others will be big hits soon.  

Everything that follows is Arlene’s, except I think some of the loglines are from TIFF or distributors and in a couple of places I comment on her comments.  I link the titles to some reviews or iMDB or TIFF.  I put Arlene’s words in italics and mine in brackets.  Plain text is I think from promotional stuff.

It’s an interesting list and Arlene said I could share it so here it is. 

What an amazing Festival TIFF was this year.  There were dozens of films out of the 350 presented that I wanted to see but the films I saw except for a few were inspiring, educational, enraging, heartwarming and overwhelming at times.  Adjectives are hard to find to express my feelings about the films I saw and I wanted to get something on paper to you so, although this doesn’t say it all by any stretch, I hope it will encourage you to at least see some of  these films.  My comments are limited because of time and are just my impressions.  The Festival was a total delight and I just loved being a part of it.  Lots of lining up for films but it is all part of the enjoyment and it was great sharing impressions with other filmgoers.       Thank you TIFF.    

A PlaceBeyond the  Pines – (US)  A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with the police.
Directed by Derek Cianfrance. Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper.

So many levels in this film, It keeps you totally involved.  Ryan Gosling displays yet another facet of his acting ability.  A lot of intrigue and I really was impressed with change of direction of the plot.

Every Day  – (UK)  I couldn’t find a summary of this film but it was such so engrossing.    Sadly not commercial and so I don’t hold out much hope for it being released but perhaps on a DVD.    It revolves around a man serving time in prison and the relationship with his wife and four children.  It was made over a five-year period and you see the children getting older and the changes in relationships.  It is a sensitive portrayal of the difficulties faced by a family with a father incarcerated.   I really was emotionally moved by this film.  [Michael Winterbottom is brilliant and so is Shirley Henderson so the film must be brilliant.]

 Quartet – (UK)  At a home for retired opera singers, the annual concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean (Maggie Smith, an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents.  Directed by Dustin Hoffman. Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon. Tom Courtney, and Billy Connolly

This was one of my favourite films.  It was Dustin’s first time directing and he did a splendid job.  Need I say, having a stellar cast was a huge benefit.  Billy Connolly almost steals the limelight although the whole cast was amazing.  Billy Connolly is a comic and added so much fun to the film.  Try and not miss this one. 

LateQuartet – (US) Members of a world-renowned string quartet struggle to stay together in the face of death, competing egos and insuppressible lust.

Amazing cast who took music lessons to make their playing more authentic and I thought they excelled in this venture.  Their personal struggles with relationships within the group is engrossing and so well done.  I would recommend this as a “Must See”

 Mr. Pip – (NewZealand)  Living under the shadow of the Papua New Guinean civil war, an eccentric schoolteacher (Hugh Laurie) forms a unique bond with a young girl (Xzannjah Matsi).

This is a gripping and difficult film at times because of the war but should not be missed.  Really educated me in the terrible trials of Papua New Guinea and was exceptionally acted by Hugh Laurie.  I can’t believe he is the doctor in the television program “House”.   I have a totally new appreciation of his acting ability.

Song for Marion – (UK)  When his beloved wife (Vanessa Redgrave) falls ill, a curmudgeonly retiree (Terence Stamp) must take her place in the local seniors' choir.

Terrence Stamp gives a marvelous performance in this heartwarming drama.  Only hope that this gets released so you can see it.  A film you will never forget.

The Company You Keep – (US) Robert Redford directs and stars in this gripping political thriller. 

I found this, as stated in the promotional material, a gripping political thriller.  A real turnabout story.  It kept me interested through the finale.  Almost impossible for me not to like a film with Robert in it and I did find this absorbing.

RoyalAffair – (Danish)  A young queen, who is married to an insane king, falls secretly in love with her physician - and together they start a revolution that changes a nation forever.

Once again, a real education for me, not knowing anything about Danish Royalty.  A sumptuous historical drama, beautiful photography and except for the subtitles that disappeared too quickly.  Totally engrossing.

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas – (US)  Edward Burns returns to the family well once again with this warm, acutely observed story about an expansive Irish clan’s fraught yuletide when the long-absent patriarch declares his intention to come home for the holidays.

I wasn’t intending to see this film, but I heard from so many of the filmgoers I talked to that it was well worth it.  I’m so pleased I took their advice because I really enjoyed this film.  Full of family relationship difficulties and well performed.  Really a close up of many of the intricacies of family interaction.

What Maisie Knew – (US)  In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter divorce. ….  An adaption of a book by Henry James.

The performance of Maisie was the best I have ever seen by a child.  The film is a very sensitive portrayal of a child’s confusion and distress through the very volatile breakup of her parents.  This is a film for everyone.

Emperor – (Japan/US)  A post-World War II epic set in Japan  Tommy Lee Jones plays MacArthur.

This was in my opinion a gripping portrayal of the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in World War II.  Informative and engrossing  for me  throughout.

Kon Tiki – (Norway/Denmark)  The story about legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic crossing of the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947.
This is an awesome film and please, please don’t miss it.  Thrilling and astonishing in every way.  I left the film wondering how it even got made.  Enough said because I could gush for ages.  

Thermae Roma – (Japan)  Japan’s biggest box office hit of the year is a sparkling time-travel comedy and one of the most unique films in the Festival.  Based on the hugely popular comic book, it brings modern Tokyo face to face with ancient Rome in a culture clash that has to be seen to be believed.
One seldom sees a comedy from Japan and for that reason it was quite fascinating.  Comedy is different in every culture and I found myself interested in the Japanese approach to comedy since it was a first for me.  I will say it was not comedy that spoke to me but enjoyed it for giving me an exposure to another culture’s comedy.

Everybody Has A Plan – (Argentina/Spain)  A man who assumes the identity of his deceased twin in Argentina.

Impressive filming and well acted by Morgenson.  However, the ending left me totally confused.  It ended abruptly and I had a lot of questions so found it disappointing.  However, since I don’t believe this will be distributed in North America there is little more to say.

The Paper Boy – (US)  The story of a young man who returns to his small Florida home town to help his reporter brother uncover the truth about a man on death row.

This was a brutal, raunchy and absolutely forgettable film for me.  The only saving grace for me was the performance of Nicole Kidman.  Such a change of character I could hardly believe  it was her.  [Won't see this review on the poster, but good for Nicole Kidman.]

Cloud Atlas – (US)  An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a ….  Directed by Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski. Starring Tom Hanks.

I left this film after about an hour.  It has been hailed as a masterpiece and I expect the technology is a major factor in its popularity.  It was so confusing with so many characters and moved from 1400 to 2040 and everything in between.  Too complex for me in the first hour.  Perhaps if I had stayed with it, my impression would be different but I went and saw “Song for Marian” immediately after, which I loved so I’m glad I left this one early.

[The Guardian (link above) called it "wildly over-reaching and not entirely unsuccessful," which is pretty faint praise. For a different, more reverent view see the New Yorker, article, although the New Yorker has become pretty wed to its own elitism and tribe; more Vanity Fair than thoughtful.]

Wasteland – (UK)  Battered, bruised and under arrest, Harvey Denton (Luke Treadaway) sits in a police interview room facing interrogation.

I left this film after about an hour.  The strong north England accents left you missing some of the dialogue and the volatile nature of the actors just did not encourage me to stay.

I didn’t see the next two but they were obviously successful.

The People’s Choice Award went to SilverLining Playboy – (US)   After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. 

The People’s Choice for Documentary went to Artifact – (CDN)

The films I wish I had been able to see but I learned from other volunteers or film goers were very special are:

Inthe House – (French)

All That Matters is Past – (Norway) [Norwegian cinema is resurgent and interesting.]

Midnight Children – (Canadian)

Amour – (French) [Every French film should be named amour.]

Stories We Tell – (Canadian) [I'd like to meet Sarah Polley; her last feature was awful but brave and beautifully film and this seems very interesting.  Canada has the best english speaking film industry because it tells stories.]

The Master – (US)

Anna Karenina – (UK)  [Come on -- she's beautiful.]

* * * * *

I want to thank Arlene for this; she sees dozens and dozens of movies a year.  She sees all types of films from all over the world.  She is not a critic, and in fact when I asked her if I could reprint her list her only comment was “I am not a critic,” as though that devalued her opinion.  She is also not a sales agent, distributor, producer, festival programmer, journalist.  She’s just a fan of movies, which I believe makes her take more helpful and insightful than the combined and conventional wisdom of the industry.  That she took the time to send me the list is an act of friendship -- the least I could do was share it.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Hiking Vermont's Green Mountains.

          The two of us stood, talking, on the side of the field of the soccer game.  The rain started up again.  The fifth grade girls raced and danced the ball up and down the pitch.  These girls, growing up fast now, used to look like a swarm of bees when they were little, clustered around the ball as it pulled them to one spot and then the next.  Now, a bit older and more athletic the girls were a team, playing their positions, passing, talking to each other.  Serious, concentrating faces set against the first wet day of this long, glorious summer.  Along the sidelines parents, dogs, older and younger kids roamed the edge of the game.  Not everyone watched the action on the field; most just conversed and caught up after this long, glorious summer.  My little girl was out there and it was beautiful.

As we stood there in the rain, we talked about how to get the most out of being outside, before it all closes in and winter comes down on us.  We agreed one way, the best way, to squeeze the most out of these last days of summer, is to walk up and down our Green Mountains.  Although in this blog I don't often go for informational but mostly rather focus on experiential, where we live, in central Vermont, there is great hiking in the fall, and it is worth talking about a bit.

            The most accessible and straightforward hike remains the a small peak near our town of Stowe, Vermont.  It is called the Stowe Pinnacle.  We hiked it in the full sun on a recent Sunday.  The small parking lot was jammed and cars spilled along the edge of the dirt road.  I expected massive crowds on the trails, but it wasn’t that bad.  There was one woman in small heels realizing she’d bit off more than she could chew.  One family near the summit with a screaming two-year-old.  Otherwise it was peaceful as the woods should be.

            Pinnacle is a steep hike but short – about a mile and a half to the granite dome.  It is a pretty trail with some rock scrambles but nothing technical.  Don’t wear heels or flip-flops.  It’s not that easy. And bring water.  With these two tips most days you'll be okay.

On the way up the hill we did run into various pods of friends, which was good for a catch up.  At the summit, on the 600 million year old granite mountaintop, we sat against the rock in the sun and looked across the valley to what seemed like the edges of the world.  We could see other great mountains to hike: Sterling and Whiteface, Mansfield of course, Lincoln to the South, Camel’s Hump.    

Very near the Pinnacle, accessible by a ridge trail from near the top of Pinnacle in fact, is Hunger Mountain, another wild peak and a difficult climb.  It is well worth the effort.  Do it as a long day hike from Pinnacle or as a separate climb from it's own trailheads.  Either way it is a great one.

            Just a week before in fact my son and I drove over to Duxbury and hiked Camel’s Hump.  A five hour, hard scrabble loop – Monroe Trail to Alpine Trail to Long Trail back to Monroe Trail – we loped along, the dog doing two trips for our one.  We took snaps by the B-24 wing. (Yes, a wing from a WWII bomber; it crashed during the war and bits are there still.)  We sat at the top and talked, picnicked, explored. 

Camel’s Hump is a glorious hike, a mountain in wilderness, deep in a large state forest.  The summit is just above tree line, providing plenty of solitude, views in every direction of the Entire World.  Tall hardwoods line the path for most of the hike and, later in fall, create a ring of color to walk through.   There are trailheads in Duxbury, and Hungtington and, via the Long Trail, you can get to Camel’s Hump from the south as well, but it’s a long hike.  There are driving directions on the state's website.

            Another spot in our view from the Pinnacle was Whiteface, a short pyramid of a mountain.  Although short it is a steep and difficult hike.  There are many ways to get to Whiteface.  The best way in is from Johnson, where the Long Trail leaves Route 15 and makes a steady climb through old hardwoods.  It is the most silent wood I have ever walked in.  There are good shelters – Bear Hollow and Whiteface – to make the hike into an overnight for the adventurous.  The walk out from Whiteface can be along the ridge all the way to Smuggler’s Notch or a steep drop down to Beaver Meadow and Mud City.

            Closer in Vermont’s tallest peak, Mt. Mansfield, offers a buffet of hikes.  The Hazleton, which runs between the Nosedive and Perry Merrill, is an odd one: a wilderness trail between two ski trails.  Great with kids and friends.  I know.  We just did it and had a blast.  The Long Trail to the Chin is a tremendous hike – challenging, beautiful, rewarding – if you don’t mind being surrounded by people who did not earn it when you reach the top. That is because you can take a Gondola to near the summit and the Toll Road allows cars to drive to the top.  It is a big mountain so there is plenty of room, but it is not always remote.  You can lose yourself there, and I mean that literally, but you can also be surrounded by families with chips.

             Lincoln, a bit farther to the south, is easily accessed from the Lincoln Gap Road. Take Route 100 to Warren, my home town, and go past the village and take a right toward Lincoln, Vermont, which is another small, rural Brigadoon.  (If you drive the Lincoln Gap Road to Lincoln, keep your eye out for tremendous swimming holes.  One is a small waterfall into a tight pool.  You can dive through the fall into the stream, which is Hobbitian.)

To hike to Lincoln Peak and Mt. Abraham park at the top of the Gap Road and walk north along the Long Trail for a relatively easy hike to the top of the Mountain, which is also a ski resort, Sugarbush, or hike to the south where there are some beautiful and more remote ridgelines and views.  At the end of it all the Warren Store in Warren Village will be a good stop. 

The trails in Vermont right now are bone dry.  There are no bugs.  The hills are starting to take on that hint of Technicolor, which will only grow intense as the fall moves in.  If the weather holds we will take advantage and roam even farther afield to the north and east: Pisgah and Big Jay are very different but awesome choices; Belvidere Mountain; Hazen’s Notch, where you will absolutely see Moose, or at least walk in what they leave on the trail.  

Belvidere is a beautiful hike. There are stretches of trail out of a movie. In fact I shot the final scene of a short film on that trail, dragging my crew and cast of children deep into the woods to do it.  It was worth the walk.

            This all just scratches the surface.  You can learn more from the Green Mountain Club, headquartered on Route 100 just south of us, in Waterbury Center.  Their website is good on information but light on maps.  A quick Google will get you into any number of hiking blogs, however, such as ‘trimbleoutdoors.com,’ which has info on each section of the Long Trail (and a Google map).  

               Details aside there is something ethereal, other worldly, about walking in the Green Mountains. The light in our northern forests, our hardwood stands, the water bubbling along some trails and the deep silence of others make it an incredible experience.

Back on the soccer field, the girl’s game ended.  They sang out a cheer and walked toward us, the mountains all around.  I wonder how much of the joy from that field comes from the kids knowing, at least subconsciously, that in ten minutes in any direction they can be in the silence of deep woods and within a few hours be standing on top of the world?

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Why?

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

            At least where we live, in central Vermont, this summer is all about the good, the bad and the ugly.

            The good is the weather.  Vermont – and seemingly only Vermont – has had beautiful, warm weather stretching back to at least the ides of March.  Yes, there’s been some rain and cold and storm and humid heat but not too much.  Mostly it feels like Southern California.  Without the congestion.  The days pour hot, dry sun out of a clear blue sky.  Aside from a hateful deer fly season, the bugs are tame; gardens are busting with bounty. While much of the rest of the country has borne fire and flood, heat from the edges of hell and old-testament sized thunder and lightening we have had nothing but gentle breezes.  It is bliss.

            The bad?  Well for that you must be a Red Sox fan.  As baseball follows summer you’d hope the fortunes of the Sox would match the bliss of the season.  It is not so.  For those who do not follow the mighty Red Stockings let me sum it up:  they suck.  Watching the pitchers is as fun as getting through a holiday meal in a dysfunctional family – you don’t so much enjoy the experience as hold your breath and hope the whole thing doesn’t blow up. 

The batters are a tease – every now and then they show what they can do.  They then don’t do it for days and days.  And when one or two of the mighty sluggers start hitting well the manager is sure to say something stupid to put the players off their stride, sending at least one of the greats not only into a funk but actually to Chicago.  

I knew the season was a disaster on July 18.  Nothing particularly bad happened that day, but when I looked at the baseball app on my iPhone to see the score against the Yankees, and I saw the date, the number 18, I thought it was the number of runs the Yanks had put up.  I thought we were losing.  The game had not even started.  When I figured it out I was not surprised.

            Yes, for Red Sox fans the glory days of 2004 and 2007 are a heady medicine but, five seasons on, the dose is wearing off.  It had been a long time since a World Series Win.  No one told us about the wicked hangover we’d have when we woke from the dream.  

            And here are some pat clichés for our dear manager Bobby Valentine:  dead man walking; don’t let the door hit you on your way out; here’s your hat what’s your hurry.  Bobby Valentine makes Don “The Gerbil” Zimmer’s time at the helm in Boston seem like a golden age.

            And on that sour note we need to close with the ugly.

            The outstanding weather has a dark side.  It is not normal in these climes to plant a garden in March and see that the spinach wintered over in the fallow ground, to bake through May and June.

            The good side?  Maybe rosemary will start growing in Vermont like a weed the way it does in Italy.  Maybe we’ll be able to grow artichokes and eggplant without a hot house.  But the reality is this much change in the climate of our planet might be fine for the planet but probably is not fine for humans or the world as we know it. 

            Maybe global warming is all just a conspiracy, but not the kind Fox News has told us it is.  Maybe climate change is actually a move by the automotive-oil cabal to make diesel engines function better in formerly cold climes, keeping us addicted to oil but allowing us to go 800 miles on a tank before needing more.  Or maybe it is just a nearly intractable problem we’ll have to overcome our petty differences to confront.

             And maybe we’ll do that just after we all agree on the best way to provide decent, meaningful and world-class publicly funded education to all children, or provide people with meaningful work and income, or develop a rational immigration policy.  Maybe.

            So there you have it:  the good, a summer for the books, one to cherish and remember and enjoy for a bit more; the bad, my Red Sox, living through the worst hangover in the history of baseball; and the ugly, the reality the great weather is a foreshadowing, if not of doom than at least of maybe being able to grow figs and oranges in the hills of Vermont.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio