The trees are changing colors quickly since the week and a half of rain. The rain seemed to keep the leaves on hold like they were when the rain started. The sun came out and nights turned cold, the leaves have been changing so rapidly since the rain one could possibly watch the change sitting in place for a few hours. Rain fell again last night and wet drizzle all day today, easy to be outside without getting wet. Wet air. Good weather for a light sweatshirt. Went to the Carpenters cabin across the road and into the woods a ways to do some laundry. Took a book and the camera. The rainwater on the leaves enhanced their colors and the tree trunks, even the ground covered with leaves. I walked around on the deck looking at the trees on three sides of the house. I like the subtleties in the colors of this phase in the change as much as the peak when they're blazing red, yellow and orange, Bullhead Mountain a gigantic mound of burning charcoal.
The rhythm of the washing machine and next the rhythm of the dryer accompanied the book I was reading on a comfortable sofa, The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby. She follows Richard Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism In American Life, 1963, tracing the progression of the anti-intellectualism of then to what she calls the Age of Unreason in the first decade of the new century. I lived through the period of time she covers from WW2 unto near present. She recounts the time as I remember it. And she generates much insight connecting dots from extensive research and experience. Today's reading concerned the statistic that most Americans, most by a lot, do not read books. It's not like this is news. She even addressed the different worlds the people who read and people who don't read inhabit. It was a kind of dizzying read today, looking at the undermining of good sense by advertising, violence on tv, the evaporating attention span, addiction to spectacle, the surge of fundamentalism, newspapers going away, cellphone, computer and camera in a pocket-sized device, endless distraction.
I like being around Sophia so much, I missed her the couple of hours away. She crawled out from a napping place after my entrance woke her. I put things up and watched the day's movie, Maps To The Stars, 2014. Credits at the beginning, I saw directed by David Cronenberg. It told me a twisted movie was ahead. And it was twisted. Excellent film. Well made story that goes along like a regular story, until it's time for the monster to come out of the closet and deliver some big surprises. Cronenberg's name also means a beautifully made creepy film. Like David Lynch, see his name in the credits at the beginning and know you'll be going into a zone tinted with discomfort. Maps to the Stars is an artfully told story that unfolds a step at a time, a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher in contemporary circumstances, Hollywood, actors, agents, writers, a swimming pool where really creepy things happen.
Justin called half way into the movie to remind me the Charlotte race is tonight, this is Saturday. Outside was fog, light rain, just enough to keep the wipers going on delay, driving home again in rain and fog. I'm so tired of driving in the rain, I did not want to do it. I told him I'd already scheduled my day in my mind and I don't want to drive in the rain. It's not much different from when the road is dry, but I'm less comfortable driving. A 500 mile race. That's hours. Vada was there and it would have been a good time with the people I'm closest to, but I did not have what it would take to drive 45 minutes each way in rain and sit for hours watching cars go fast. I needed a nap after the Cronenberg experience. It had already been entered into my internal navigator for the day that I wanted to use the evening to write to you.
photos by tj worthington
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Lovely photos.
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