Brown-Eyed River

"The Da Vinci Code" - middle-class, soccer-mom review by Linda Vining

The Da Vinci Code

For reasons I can't quite describe, I felt the urge to send up a review of "The Da Vinci Code".  Well, a commentary, I guess.  God knows I am not an expert on cinema, and my tastes in film are not comprehensive.  But if you are just a middle-aged someone or other like me, you might want to know if you're likely to enjoy this film.

Yes.  You will.  You won't be awestruck.  You will be entertained, and your time and the cost of your ticket will be well spent.  If you go to the movies only when you expect to be swept away, well, you might as well learn that walking in the surf is good, too.

I rarely miss a Ron Howard film, because I like his storytelling.  Also, I secretly consider him a fellow-traveller -- he's just a year younger than I am and, judging from his films, he has a lot of the same sensibilities I have.  "The Da Vinci Code" has all the elements that make a Ron Howard story enjoyable for me, although not in the same large measure as some of his other films. 

I can't agree that the film starts out too slowly, as some have said.  A film that pops right off with a mysterious ritual murder is usually enough of an attention-getter for me, though perhaps I'm too easy to impress.  I had not read the book before seeing the film (yes, I live on another planet), and if you have not read it either, you might want to do so before seeing the film.  It will give you an appreciation for the mighty and largely successful job screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has done in unsnarling the book's plot lines in order to weave a workable film.  The author has handed these folks quite a tangle of divergent yarns.  The result of carefully knitting them together is not elegant, but it is cohesive enough to be a solid couple hours of exciting entertainment.  So many lines of exposition are necessary to carry forward with Dan Brown's complicated story that it simply isn't possible to do justice to the texture of each one of them in the space of this film.  If you find yourself hungry for more development of a character, a motivation, or a line of action, do just relax and watch it whizz by, because there is another fragment speeding in right behind it.  This is one of those films in which you may periodically think that you entered in the middle of the conversation.  It's an imperfection, to be sure, but it's far from a fatal one, and if you allow yourself to fuss about it you will miss the fun of a murder mystery.

I'm always surprised that so little is said about the cinematography, the production design, or the score when people write about film.  These folks are lucky if they get an adjective each, per review.  Yet a film is something you see and hear, and the writing and the acting don't account for even half of that.  In "The Da Vinci Code", cinematographer Salvatore Totino and production designer Allan Cameron pull more than their weight, giving the film a visual richness that sustains you and carries you through places where the plot lines puzzle or trail off.  There's a great deal of potentially overpowering classic architecture and artwork in the film, and these two men have done a splendid job of creating effective cameo appearances for such masterworks, causing them to act as gracious hosts to the story told by the film.

Speaking of gracious hosts, Hans Zimmerman's score can be credited with spinning the other-worldly atmosphere that carries this tangled story to us.  His use of voices is particularly powerful in creating and sustaining our emotional response and sense of forboding in stretches where the action is in transit from one incident to another.  This is music that guides us through the dark.

I'm not sure where the notion comes from, but there seems to be a current theory that a film with 'high production values' is not entitled to show any rough edges.  As a movie-goer, I care most about meshing the various components of a film so as to bring the story home in one piece.  That's why I go to the movies.  "The Da Vinci Code" accomplishes this, rough spots notwithstanding.  Go see it. 

more robins

I forgot to mention an additional article, with links to some really good resources on wildlife rehabilitation and migratory wildlife (especially migratory songbirds.  It's here:

Robin article, with photo and links

Robins

It's late February, and the robins have returned.  I'm a little embarrassed to admit how excited I am to see them each year.  It's as though some part of me can stop holding its breath, because the season has begun to turn.

The robins have returned a little earlier than most years.  I've become accustomed to watching for them sometime around mid-March, so when I saw one early last week, I thought perhaps it was one of the overwinter birds you sometimes see near the wild blackberries.  But overwinter robins usually stay in groups, and this fellow was alone.

Not for long.  Within a few days, two more male robins were running along the tops of the fence rails.  And when there's more than one robin, something important begins....  The singing.

[Click on this text to hear the American Robin's territorial song.  This link will take you to The Journey North, a favorite site of mine, where Elliot Lang Nature Sound Studio supplies the bird sounds.  Please click your browser's back button to return here!)]

They only sing a little when they first arrive, but there's all the difference in the world between a landscape with only the wind, and a landscape with birdsong.  They probably have more to say than I realize, and I learn more each year about their various calls and habits. 

People attach all kinds of romantic notions to robins, myself included.  But for some time now I have realized that these are pretty fierce, no-nonsense creatures.  There are fights between male robins, and while I've never seen one kill another it has sometimes looked like it could happen.  Mom robins here raise between two and five broods per season, and they mate and lay and feed babies until they themselves begin to look really shabby and exhausted.  I've watched hungry robins  in the grass at some length, and hunting is serious business.  They stalk.  They have very acute hearing, and they turn their heads to listen for the disturbance of grubs or worms near the soil's surface.  They stab and yank their prey out of the ground with such force that a robin with an injured leg will starve in short order because it is unable to win such battles.

It's a mysterious mixture, I think -- the beautifully delicate songs, and the deadly daily struggle of being both a preditor and prey.  Beauty perches in strange places.

Linda

[a link to my songbird photographs]   

[a link to Journey North's homepage, to see spring migrations]

maple sugar

It's officially time to start yearning for spring, in my opinion.

Our winter has been mild.  The January thaw was overlong and warmer than usual.  But the early part of February was appropriately bitter, and then...

We began to have day after day of that magic temperature cycle, nights in the twenties F., and days in the forties F.  This, my friends, makes the sap run in the sugar maples.

Maple sugaring is actually a pretty significant agricultural product here.  People do a lot of it in Ohio.  It has to be done on a relatively small scale, because there is so much variation in the saps from individual trees, so nobody's ever gotten really good at making the real thing on the scale at which Gallo makes Hearty Burgundy.  No batch is ever remotely the same.  You can't hurry the trees.  Consequently, the process hasn't changed much in the past two hundred and fifty years.  Mostly, what has changed is the composition of the containers used to catch the sap, and the stuff you burn to produce the heat to boil it off.  Basically, you still collect the sap that drips out of the tree, and you cook it down til it's real sweet.

The syrup is the good part.  As for the rest of it, I can tell you that sugaring is cold, muddy, smoky, sweaty business.  (Cold and muddy in the sugarbush, smoky and sweaty in the sugarhouse.)  I know because my neighbor used to sugar, and also because I've gone out to photograph maple sugaring in years past.  I might do it this year, too. 

You know, people who don't live out here think that something like sugaring is very picturesque.  And make no mistake, there is magic in it.  But like most things rural, the charming result is the product of a lot of nasty work.

You try your best to locate your sugar shack downhill from your trees.  This isn't usually too hard to do, since the shack is, well, just a shack and you can put it just about anywhere.  But it will make it clear to you pretty quickly why maple sugaring is something people do in hilly parts of the country rather than in flat parts.  Any grove of trees from which you have to carry your buckets will be one that you abandon as soon as the trees on the slope are big enough to sugar.  Before the advent of flexible hoses, every tree had a bucket that had to be carried away, and this was something you generally did with draft horses and sledges.  The stuff is heavy, and the snow is either melting and wet, or it has all gone to mud.  That's still the way you do it, with horses or an ATV, if for some reason you can't tap your trees with hose.

Fortunately, draft horses are pretty good tempered creatures.  I've never gotten along with ATVs.

I haven't stuck around long enough to find out exactly why, but sugaring is something you can't leave in the middle.  I guess it spoils things if you let the fire get low or the syrup cool down before you're done.  When our neighbor did his own sugaring, he and his sons ran the shack day and night for about three days, consuming considerable amounts of both firewood and beer.  He tapped some of our trees (he lived downhill from our place), so he always brought us a few jugs of syrup in return.  It looked eerie, the smoke and steam and firelight, and the hollering, down below amongst the bare trees.  I figure maple sugaring is the one last stir-crazy party of winter.

Linda            

Button Quail Hens

Made the decision early this week to put on ten more button quail hens, and today I drove out to the western edge of the state to buy them and bring them back.  My egg broker is currently paying me very nice prices per egg,  for quail eggs.  This is not the season when birds usually lay eggs, but even now most of these little girls lay two or three eggs a week.  By spring, they will each lay an egg everyday, like chickens do.  So, anyway, that's why I decided to heed my broker's plea to attempt to fill her increasing orders for quail eggs.  She gives me the cartons to pack the eggs and comes here to pick them up -- all I have to do is gather the eggs from under the birds.

It was a beautiful day for a long drive -- cold and bright and sparkly with snow.  The western part of the state is flat and open -- not like the rolling Appalachian highlands where I live -- and usually I feel creepily exposed in landscapes like that.  But there was hoarfrost in the early part of the day and, as that burned away,  the snow glittered and twinkled all the way to the horizon so that the air seemed to be full of moving lights. 

I'm pretty tired nevertheless, because it was a three hour drive in each direction.  And I must say, these poor little hens are THE most freaked-out, stressed out little birds I have ever seen.  They never did settle down at all on the drive back, running over top of each other and beeping in alarm the whole time, and periodically boinking themselves on the top of the crate, making feathers fly everywhere.  They were dangerously exhausted by the time I got them in the studio sunroom -- got themselves a sip of water and then fell asleep leaning against the dish, too tired to even walk away.  I hope I don't lose any, which is quite possible.  One of the nicest hens died of fright in the breeder's hand as he picked her up.  I had hoped to buy her, and he had wanted to keep her for her unique coloring, so we were both dismayed at that.  I came away with ten hens all the same.

This fellow is a good breeder, as farmers go.  His birds are crowded together for convenience of feeding and cleaning -- and they are as clean and well-fed as crowded birds can be.  He is proud his birds, but he isn't sentimental about individual ones.  So he has many interesting color strains, but many of the subordinate hens have had their backs picked clean by by their dominant sisters, which is a common effect of crowding.  To the farmer's eye, they aren't crowded, but these are birds that associate in bonded pairs rather than in flocks, so the birds act as though their neighbor is intruding in their nesting area.

So, these are my girls now.  I brought home a few that had been badly picked, because the breeder could feel an egg in the vent -- I don't care what they look like, as long as they are not too stressed to lay.  Sometimes badly picked birds just never do get it together and lay eggs...  But these will be housed two or maybe three to a large pen, with vitamins and high protein feed, cover plants to hide under, and time in the yard to eat greens and catch bugs when the weather is good.  So I hope all ten will give me eggs, the way my current two hens do.

Linda

      

Is It Spring Yet?

This winter saw the addition of two little goats to our barn.

My neighbor had purchased two young horses, and was waiting in her pasture when the shipping trailer arrived.  The driver let down the gate saying, "Here are your horses, and their goats."

My neighbor protested that she hadn't purchased any goats, and furthermore, her barn and fences were not adequate for goats.

"They belong to the horses, and the horses belong to you," the man said dryly.

My neighbor has seven children.  It wasn't long before the sturdier of the two goats had deposited the younger children  more or less permanently on their backsides, and the more shy of the two had been flattened by her large dog.  So when I drove by and happened to admire her new goats, she said, "Take them."  So I did.

Ginger and Dolly are doe Pygmy Goats.  These are my first goats, and I confess I am utterly smitten.  From what I can tell, these two were bottle-fed, because they follow you everywhere and will sit on your lap if given the chance.  They have accompanied me on many pasture walks now, but they don't like the snow.

That's all right with me.  I don't either.

Goats, it seems, don't like to get wet, and don't like their feet to get stuck in things.  These are matters on which goats and I also agree.  When goats come to the door of the barn, and there is snow on the ground, they look like the goat you see above.  Actually, this is Ginger, wondering why she can't come in to the nicer, warmer part of the barn (I'm cleaning buckets in it), but The Look is similar -- heartbroken astonishment.  This is pretty much the way I feel when I look out the door, by the time it gets to be February in central Ohio.

Mind you, the goats and I have had it unusually easy this winter.  It's been warm for winter, with less snow than usual.  But with or without snow, winter in this part of the midwest is grey, crusty, sodden, and treacherous.  It wears on you.  I don't care for it much.  And by February I'm as tired of it as the goats are.

But the cardinals are starting to lengthen their songs.  Mr. Cardinal has offered his lady a seed at the feeder, and she has accepted it.  And I know from experience that this means things will soon brighten up for the goats and me.

Linda    

The Riffle

Geez, I am so excited. 

I'm not going to write too much about The Riffle itself here, because I worked hard to write all that and put it on the studio website.  When I read a blog, and then I go to their website and find the very same words, I don't like that very much.  So I try not  to do it myself. 

Instead, I'd like to just enthuse here about finding a new (or at least new to me) artform.

The Riffle is my image and audio series, based on the natural settings and life in this midwest river valley where I live.  For all intents and purposes, its an audio slideshow series.  The audio-slideshow is becoming a ubiquitous thing.  It's the animated banner that invites you to kiss Brad Pitt.  It's the little box in the corner of the tv station's website, that runs a reporter's voice-over and still photos of breaking news.

It's been an enormous surprise to me that these little image and sound haikus seem to have caught the attention of advertisers while bypassing the notice of artists.  What a nifty little vehicle for artistic expression!  Some still images, blended together in a series of evocative visual transitions; a bit of speaking, some ambient sound, a few words read aloud, all woven in.  Two minutes, three minutes, maybe five at most --- a chance to bewitch anyone passing through one's corner of the internet...

It seemed to me that this was a heavenly economical and powerful form of expression.

The more I looked and listened, the more it seemed that these 'Flash movies' or 'Quicktime movies' were being used as supportive additions to language-based expressions -- the equivalent of 'illustrations' of audio books or audio articles.  I can't imagine why it hasn't attracted more interest from visual artists. 

I experimented with the formats that I found on the internet, and finally decided that it might be better not to speak over top of pictures.  It sort of drowned out the images.  So I chose ambient sound, and slides of text where words seemed needed.

The result was "The Riffle" and it's first installment "Knox Woods ... A Walk With The Old Ones".  It's a three and a half minute piece taken from an autumn walk through a nearby patch of old growth forest.

I feel so strongly that the land on which one lives deserves to speak for itself -- or at least, one is obliged to repeat what it says.  It's an idea that gives me courage to begin and dig determinedly into "The Riffle".  So I have started it, and I will keep at it.

Linda

Old Growth Forest, new suprises

Trying hard to get the last details done on membership features for the online studio website.  I'm really pleased with them, honestly excited.  I guess I'd better be -- why work so hard at it if I don't like it?

All the membership features will be free the first month. I truly want anyone who is interested to see them.  I'm keeping the membership price really low -- the only reason there is a 'price' at all is that I have to charge for some things in order to keep doing what I do.  And I'm so totally convinced it's worthwhile.  The rural landscape needs a voice.  People need to hear, people need to see.  There's no more true and constant companion than the land you live on, the land you live in.

The centerpiece of the membership items is a weekly audio slideshow called "The Riffle".  It took me a long time to settle on a name for something that I wanted to be primarily visual.  I mean, "Looky Here" seemed just as good a name, for the longest time.  But I decided the word "riffle" would link the feature with the river valley theme I've chosen for the studio work.  (A riffle is just what it sounds like -- those pebbly, shallow areas where the water is noisy as it flows over.)  And it also recalled to mind those flip-books of cartoons that I used to be able to get as a kid.  A flip-book was the first thing I thought of as I started working on the Flash coding for the slideshows.

I knew I wanted to put audio with it, and for a long time, I thought radio models would be the right way to go.  I listened hard, I read, I researched -- I tried it.  But in the end, I decided that when you talk over pictures, the words take over.  And if words were what I wanted, I could just write.  So the Riffles come with sound, but it's the sound that was there when the images were collected.

The first Riffle is a visit to a nearby patch of old growth forest.  We actually have old growth here in Ohio, and one of the nature preserve is just up the road from me.  There are just tiny patches of it left, but they are remarkable places.  I'm sure it won't be that last time I go there with camera in hand.

Other membership features will be jigsaw puzzles from my photo portfolio; discounts on courses, articles, and publications; and weekly links of interest.  It shouldn't take me too long to get the wallpapers coded, and I want to develop some screensavers as well.  The latter will take a little time, because I want to be sure I have a widely compatible format.

I've always felt faintly sheepish about the jigsaw puzzles.  They seemed childish to me, even though I liked them a lot myself.  And to my surprise, they've been very popular.  There are a fair number of people who just show up for the puzzles, so I must not be alone.

Completely apart from all this, I decided to open a weblog on visual thinking.  If you are a visual thinker yourself, or if you live with one, it might interest you.  I'll post a link to it later today.

Linda

Level 3 and Cogent Feud: Some images unavailable

Just a word to let readers know I have not lost my photographic marbles -- which you might think is the case if you tried to read a photographer's blog or website and found a lot of little red X's where the pics should be.

Two major providers of "backbone" internet capability have started cutting each other off this week, rather than sharing networks as they have previously done.  This meant that many online businesses, including my primary image host, were cut off from many of their customers and had to scramble to re-jigger their ability to serve up images and data.  While my poor image hosting service was in mid-jigger, the two backboners began sharing again, sort of -- casting everyone who depends on them into further uncertainty.

My images aren't lost.  They'll be back.  But meanwhile, it takes the online fun out of photography for a lot of us.

Linda Vining

"Capture Images You Love With ANY Digital Camera!"

Well, it's here at last.  I feel like I'm launching a ship -- there have certainly been moments when I would have loved to bash a bottle over something's bow!  So take a look at this thing, by golly:

Capturing Images You Love With ANY Digital Camera

That title up above is the name of the studio's new e-course.  I think it's pretty cool, if I do say so myself.  It's 4 weeks long.  There's a downloadable text book, weekly online chats, a listserv, lots of peer and instructor interaction, and a personal conference at the end for each student.  We've got both raw beginners and experienced shooters in the same classes.  I admit I've had one or two experienced people who balked at being in with people who were learning the basics -- until they realized how much of the basics they'd strayed from.

I never thought I would enjoy this so much.  The stimulation of so much seeing going on at once is tremendous.

I am glad to have most of the technical legwork behind me.  I mean, there's always technical legwork (for instance, right now, my hugely reliable image server is not feeling well).  But I hope it will be a long time before I see another one of those stretches where I sit in front of the computer in the same clothes for three days.

Also, I'm positively dying to spend a solid day with my own camera.  I have ambitions to wade the river this year, and I've even got new hip boots, but the weather has been rainy.  I don't mind taking some risks with my equipment -- but the combined hazards of having my camera doused with rain and dunked in the river is too much for my nerves.

But do take a look at this e-course.  A lot of lovely people gave their input, and I can't wait to dig in with the first group of participants.  LV