Tragic – and unexpected?!

candybowl

While in the car today, they said it was Keith Moon’s bday, and that he would have been 72 years old (he only made it to 32, sadly, he passed in 1978).

While I don’t think he was the absolute greatest in rock (nor is Ginger Baker, although HE certainly thinks so) – he’s definitely one of the all time greats – not for many of the same reasons as most, though – he’s fairly unpredictable, and manic, and undisciplined to boot. But in the crazy world of The Who – he was a perfect fit.

RIP, Keith – somewhere I hope you are looking down from the biggest set of drums any cloud ever tried to hold aloft, and still driving everyone crazy along the way….

candybowl

Thanks to mein vater for the tip on this one – what a great episode and sure wish that car had been mine (barring that it was a ’73 – I like ’74s a bit better due to the back scoop)…be warned – this link will likely open a number of popups on you, that you’ll have to minimize or close….

candybowl

Bellisima! Futtitini!

here’s some pics and a quick bocce video – we’ll have Karri’s interview audio online soon!

Quick Video:

Slideshow:

So this has been a bit of a slow summer for TR8 driving, mainly because of tech issues not long after I got it out of storage (had a flat when I got it out – got that tire patched; then had an overheating problem that with some ancillary help and a couple repairs, i was actually able to fix myself) – and then we’ve gone out of town a bit recently too.

So…finally had an ‘event’ to use it in – a Poker Run with the local Tyee Triumph club. We met in Issaquah next to a pub and Top Pot Doughnuts, probably about 15 cars total? Couple photos of us waiting below, my TR8 is in the very back of the first one before the truck, a bit hard to see:

so we took off, I followed the couple in the white TR6 as I had no ‘navigator’ with me – great, country drive through back roads towards Black Diamond (with bakery stop), then a Cidery:

at this stop, I had a chance to admire some of the other cars in greater detail, including the beautiful black Spitfire in our group, and Tom Eller’s TR250:

but then, back on the road we went. We also stopped in Maple Valley in a retail parking lot as a ‘rest’ stop. As a Poker Run, each stop gave us a poker card to write down, then at the end, when we were back in Issaquah at the pub, we compared ‘hands’ and weirdly enough (with only a pair of Kings) – i won! So I got my choice of the 3 prizes, I picked the Triumph Parking sign:

What a fun event! Hopefully they will have something else similar before i have to put the Wedge back in storage likely in Mid-Oct, depending on the weather…..

candybowl

Man, Neil Finn is young in this:

candybowl

So, it’s that time of year again, when much of the car-loving tri-county area descends upon our neighborhood for the annual end of June Greenwood Car Show.

Bit of a different vibe this year, while still pretty crowded, I think the overcast, “i’m not sure if i’m going to rain” weather scared some away, and it was definitely more like early chilly spring than summer, to be sure.

Still, several cool highlights (view these in the Gallery linked on the left side)

– two black early 50s Porsche’s, likely Kerewin’s fave cars;

– great showings from the local vintage Mini, Datsun, VW, MG and other misc vintage British clans;

– not as many muscle cars as past recent years (to me, good – I’d seen enough Chevy Nova’s and Mach 1’s back in high school to last me several lifetimes) but if you liked even older Chevy Impala’s (making me always think of Adam-12) – this was your show. I’d have to guess that specific car model was definitely the most numerous, or at minimum in the top 5;

– two Panteras this year, nice!

– only a couple Kei cars, an Autozam and a Figaro (there were several last year)

– and one other big highlight for me – a Volvo Valp! Haven’t seen one in person for years, but there it was. Not restoration quality but it sounds like he’s been having a lot of work done on it – will be cool to see if it shows up next year too.

candybowl

Earlier this week, kerewin and I checked out A Wrinkle in Time. I had wanted to see this, then when it came out and the reviews weren’t good, I was a bit sad, but still wanted to see it anyway.

Because to me, the original book is very much of my time (came out in the early 60’s, I was born in the late 60’s), it’s not a very conventional book by any means (besides being sci-fi to begin with) and I’ve always considered it one of my key early books that got me really interested in the genre generally.

I think for me the key appeal of the story is that it takes fairly heavy subject matter (the never-ending struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, tough social situations and family struggles) and doesn’t talk down to the reader, despite being a kid’s book in the end. Even re-reading it a couple years ago on a whim, it’s still a good (if now much quicker) read, has respect for its characters and tells a good story – the key criteria above all.

So it’s clear why Hollywood would have a problem making a movie based on this story, and my initial take on the movie is that they made a decent try at it. I liked the new approach of an African-American girl in L.A. – her younger brother is possibly even *more* precocious than the Charles Wallace of the book (who was pretty far along on his own), and the star power of Reese Witherspoon, Oprah, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine and Zach Galifinakis really doesn’t get in the way in the end, BUT….

1) they give short shrift to the main plot – they focus too long on Meg’s school problems and not long enough on the other aspects once they tesser to Uriel, Camazotz, finding Chris Pine (the dad) and then back – happens way too quickly and without enough dialog, at minimum.

2) they completely skip the whole Ixchel sequence (when they tesser out originally with their father and Meg is damaged by IT in doing so, and then she has to go back in, all alone, to rescue Charles Wallace). This is a critical part of the book that shows Meg at her most vulnerable, then launches her back into chaos (Camazotz again) and she learns an important lesson about herself and her inner strength. Because the movie skips this entire sequence, we go from an abortive ‘father rescue’ right to rescuing Charles Wallace – more plot thinning, as it were.

3) there are too many ‘musical segue’ sequences that play like a music video interlude between dramatic scenes. There are at least three and they really just waste screen time that could have been devoted to plot or character dialog…

4) Camazotz far more resembles ‘CGI Dagobah’ than the scary planet depicted in the book. While they start with the kids bouncing the ball in the neighborhood, they quickly blow that off and all of a sudden we have already rescued Chris Pine? Again, far too quickly and thins out the plot yet again.

5) And there is no ‘IT’ in this movie?! Arguably the scariest part of the book in many ways, at best, IT is depicted through a dark, hardly speaking voice while Meg and Charles Wallace scramble around in what looks like a modern version of Yoda’s summer home – Just not scary? And the ‘evil’ is largely depicted as Charles Wallace yelling at or scolding Meg. While it’s possible that the ‘disembodied oversized brain’ of IT in the book may not work cinematically these days – it’s still better than a not-scary root forest with some weird voice in the background? Plus, they keep calling IT ‘The IT’ – as if IT is a piece of evil furniture? Doesn’t work.

6) I saw part of an earlier 2003 adaptation of the book, most namely the first IT sequence – and while there they left out the ‘brain’ too – it is much creepier and weird, arguably truer to the book. I may now need to check out this earlier film just to see the differences.

Anyway, mixed bag, ultimately disappointing but I give them props for trying….

candybowl

Interesting article on the HBO series Silicon Valley – I think this year has been off, in part for the reasons they mention, but in part because I think the ‘character feuding’ they describe has been largely a distraction – I think only near the end of the year do they belatedly get back on track with Gavin being the big nemesis, Jian-Yang causing problems like before and the characters succeeding in spite of themselves – the whole competition between Dinesh and Guilfoil (IMTHO) has been largely lame this year – before it was just college-boy one-upmanship but this year it seemed to get more ‘personal’ and just seemed lame.

One other thing to consider – if you aren’t IN the tech industry, they covered most of the rampant silliness in the first four seasons, so it’s not surprising they are running out of Bay Area subject matter to cover, at least to me – but Mike Judge is a very smart guy, he’ll come up with something good I’m sure….

HBO’s Silicon Valley is struggling to stay relevant

candybowl

And given we are lucky enough to have restored one of the few remaining Cinerama theaters in the country (after all these years), we can actually WATCH the movie in its original intended format – that screen is huge, and the movie still holds up well to this day. I go about every other year when it comes around and it’s still worth it. So many other sci-fi movies just don’t hold up anymore for various reasons but this one……

2001 set the standard for the next 50 years of hard (and some soft) sci-fi

candybowl