Thoughts on Blinded by the Light, the Movie.

Today is a Saturday.  Outside there is full sun and warm temperatures. Today is the 50th anniversary of the second da the Woodstock music festival.  As I set these words down I am listening to the Jefferson Airplane’s performance of Wooden Ships. According to the liner notes this version is very long.  One of my all time favorite songs.  I guess I will see how it feels.

Most nights I have been trying to get something down on paper, well electronic paper.  Last night I was just too tired.  I spent most of the evening watching an old Canadian television show, a sort of Rockford Files set in Newfoundland and Labrador called  Republic of Doyle. Very simple plot lines, cute people and smatterings of Newfie speak.  Tree instead of three is an easy example, but there are others. The trade off was not really worth it. , I smiled at the antics but I felt bad about not writing.  I am trying to make sure that something gets down most days and I feel guilty about last night.

I had thought about going to the movies last night.  Didn’t happen.  Instead, Francie and I went this morning.  We went to a 10:35 am showing of Blinded by the Light.  It was yet another story of Pakistani children growing up in England. This is a whole sub genre of Brit flicks.  Bend it like Beckham was probably the first I saw. East is East was another.  There is a constant thread in these movies about the Pakistani sense of obligation to family butting up against western concepts of the primacy of the individual.  This battle was on full display in Blinded.

The movie has a great deal of heart wrapped up with the music of Springsteen and just a dash of 1940s musicals/Bollywood dancing.  The poofy hair styles, the Boy George style hats, the balloon pants, well gosh, we did wear those for a time didn’t we? Don’t expect a hard hitting drama, the film is a very amiable piece of fluff.  Still there are many worse ways to spend a couple of hours on a warm summer day.

If you go and see the film you have to stay for the credits.  If you have not heard it yet, there is a song Springsteen wrote for the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone movie.  This quiet gem didn’t get used in that film.  But what Bruce crafted remains a  beautiful song.  You can pull it up on Apple Music and probably on YouTube.  But sitting in a cool theater after most of the audience has left listening to this very sweet and very warm song adds something to the whole experience.

Today just for the record is not a cancer day.  Angst has been dialed down to 1.  I did get an envelope from U of M with instructions on the handling of myself immediately before the surgery.  It also gave me directions to the a meeting at the anesthesiologist’s office. Finally, there was a follow up appointment with the doctor post surgery.  These will one day be written down on shared calendars.  But today is not that day.

Tonight the nerds will invade my house.  I may have to go out for pizza to give them space.  Sigh.

Post Script.  I listened to the entirety of.the Wooden Ships, it was nice but it was of the era.  I have heard versions I have liked more.  But if I was trippin’ balls in the middle of a mud-field in 1969 it would have been heavenly.