Me thinks we doth protest too much
Who would have ever thought Fargo-Moorhead would become such a disagreeable little community? Whatever happened to Minnesota nice, which has encroached on Fargo 1970s.
But in just the last week, some people are getting all up in arms about political doings and government goin-ons.
The masses started mumbling the morning after the Nov. 4 general election. Minnesota's Incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman suggested Democratic challenger Al Franken should cede the race, even while ballot counting was continuing. Unfortunately, Coleman didn't know, or bother to note that the margin was so slim that the state would require a hand recount of the 2.9 million ballots.
The Senate races (Alaska and Georgia are also undecided and heading to a recount or an entire do-over in the Peach State) at least wer arguable in their undecidedness. The very decisive vote in favor of California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the Golden State, was equally upsetting to some - notably the gay community both in and outside California.
But even as far away as the midle of nowhere, here in the Red River Valley, folks were outraged by the ban. So almost 10 days after the election, area gay rights activists organized F-M Protest for Love, in which more than 200 opposed to "Prop H8" flocked to the southwest corner of the Veterans Bridge waving colorful signs.
Perhaps encouraged by that strong showing, a vigil is now planned in front of the Federal Building (aka Post Office) on Wednesday. The gathering is supposed to show support for the 23 Indian nationals arrested at a construction site outside Casselton, N.D., now, apparently, known as the Cass Co. 23. Organizers feel the illegals were being used as slave labor and were snatched up by authorities.
Of course, tomorrow is also the first day of the Minnesota recount. So much to protest, so little time.
Posted by: johnlamb on 11/18/2008 at 3:09 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Barack Mo-bama?
Enter your blog post here...
Was it just me, the lighting or was Barack Obama showing the early makings of a moustache during his acceptance speech Tuesday night?
Perhaps he was just giving props to the Moustaches for Obama campaign.
Or maybe he was showing a little love for Movember
Though the now president-elect ran a clean (shaven) campaign, he had some hirsute supporters.
Take a look to see how Obama would look with a Fu Manchu. That would really have conservative conspiracy theorists spinning.
I say, let it grow, B.O. Moustaches work well for North Dakota politicians and it could be your key to finally turning this red state blue when you run for re-election in 2012.
Posted by: johnlamb on 11/5/2008 at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Another bar bites the dust...
It's bad enough that some of the area's coolest bars have been closed, but seeing the building torn down? That's just twisting the knife.
Today I watched a jawed-crane rip chunks of sheet metal from what opened nearly 38 years ago as The Lark. Of course, that theater closed in the early 1980s when conventional wisdom was to ditch one big screen in favor of two smaller ones and relocating theaters to shopping areas, away from downtowns and out by highways and ineterstates. In the late 1990s the Lark, which at the time had most recently been an indoor driving range, re-opened as the Cinema Grill, which in addition to showing second run movies served food, beer and wine.
Granted, the food was greasy and over-priced, and the movies weren't really critics' darlings, but the tickets were cheap andin the summer the theater was cool (Actually, because the theater was built on stilts over a parking lot, the auditorium was often quite cool in winter as well.) Besides, who wants to see a great movie like, umm... "Gandhi", smelling someone's greasy pizza and listen to someone's beer burps?
Nope. You went to the Cinema Grill to over-indulge in shameless appetites. I drank a lot of over-priced Killians Red, ate too many bland quessadillas and saw too many Joshua Jackson movies. (actually, I only saw "Skulls," but that was more than enough.)
I experienced possibly my greatest laughing fit there, falling out my chair after Samuel L. Jackson got his head bit off by a genetically-modified shark in "Deep Blue Sea." I also got motion sickness watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Satan action pic "End of Days." I never would've gone to any of those movies in any other theater, or bothered watching them on TV, but there was a definite appeal to going to a stinker with friends, tying one on, maybe heckling if the theater was empty, then wandering home across the street.
I'm sure the new NDSU/City Scapes project will fit a growing need and be better for downtown than a movie theater that operated under capacity for most of its run, but I can't help missing the days when I could, with a straight face, ask a friend, "Do you wanna go see 'Black Dog," the Patrick Swayze trucker movie with Meat Loaf and Randy Travis." More than that, I'll miss the days when a friend would shrug and say, "Why not."
Posted by: johnlamb on 9/25/2008 at 2:55 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Fargo Film Fest
Wednesday was a mixed night on the big screen at the Fargo Theatre. The first full day of the 8th Annual Fargo Film Festival wound down with one experimental movie (Imissed it) and three documentaries.
The best by far was "The Children of Leningradsky," by Polish director Hanna Polak. Her unflinching look at the homeless children who roam and make their home in railroad stations of Moscow is one of the most upsetting movies I've seen in a long time. While the style isn't flashy and the story is straightforward, what's so powerful is just how much we see of these kids' hard times. And how hard it's been for so many so young.
Many of the children say they've left homes where adults were alcoholics, sexually abusive or just emotionally absent. And things just keep getting worse. After hearing their stories, we see how they turn to drinking and huffing glue and even turn on each other. It's unrelentingly and at times hard to watch, but so moving, you'll want to get involved. That's exactly what Polak wants. Though I wanted some mindless comedy.
On a local level, "Plain Art" was a more uplifting piece. Director Mary Trunk followed Fargo painter Marjorie Schlossman as she lined up six area architects to construct mobile mini-chapels in which she would paint.
It's a great artistic idea - one creative person gives another $25,000 to design and construct a space many will find spiritual. Great ideas don't always translate into easy application, however and you see how two creative people can view things so differently.
After she lines up the architects, Schlossman waits to get to work inthe spaces. And waits. And waits. As a number of architects confess, their profession is one drawn to procratination. Richard Moorhead seems a pretty monotone guy, but some of his quips are the best.
Schlossman doesn't always take the missed due dates in great stride and you feel the tension building. After the project is complete, she talks about billing some for damages to the chaplets.
Likewise a rift seems to develop between the painter and Laurel Reuter at the North Dakota Museum of Art. After agreeing to accept the six chaplets and to bring them to spots around the state, Reuter bills Schlossman $10,000 for the man-hours and mileage it took to take down and reconstruct the structures.
It would be easy to assume the whole movie is a vanity project for the painter, but Trunk exposes the cracks in what was a good-natured agreement. Too bad she didn't go back to Reuter and the architects after Schlossman airs her grievances for a more even-handed approach. The film could've also used time stamps as the whole idea is to document a creative period and a looming deadline. And speaking of deadline, the movie could've been trimmed by at least 10 minutes, an hour and a half is just too long.
Also a bit disturbing was Margie Bailly's glowing reccomendation about this film and her friend Schlossman before the screening, then seeing her glowing on the screen at the NDMOA opening. Bailly was also a sponsor of the Ruth Landfield Award, which the film received. A little seperation may have been a good idea.
The movie could have a good life on Prairie Public TV and touring with the chaplets, but I can't imagine many outside the area would have too much interest.
What's not much worth seeing is "Rising: Portrait of an Artist," a look at a mediocre Minnesota landscape artist and how she overcame an absent alcoholic father and a divorce to blossom from a painter of cowboys drinking coffee in the snow and woofs into a disciple of the Bob Ross school of painting "happy little trees."
Her landscapes were interesting at first, but after a few, you get it - she like painting dusk and the dark. It's mysterious. Right. I was really more interested in what she used to paint her lips that bright red. Does she really pack makeup when she's roughing it outdoors?
Oh well, everyone's a critic.
Posted by: johnlamb on 3/6/2008 at 5:54 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Up, up and Sanjay
As some of you know, I flew with the Blue Angels in June of 2007. And since the Blue Angels are a recruiting tool of the Navy, I think that entitles me to a full military funeral when (if) I die.
That little trip put me in the esteemed ranks of actors James Franco (the "Spider-Man" series) Wilmer Valderrama (Fez from "That '70s Show," also known as Lindsey Lohan's ex-boyfriend) and Michael Irby (from something), a bunch of NASCAR drivers and Forum reporters Andrea Domaskin and Gerry Gilmour.
Today I saw that CNN medical correspondant Sanjay Gupta also took the Blues' cruise. I think it's worh noting that while I held myself together, he experienced the two Ps - passing out and puking. He understands and explains better than I did how the gravity strains affect your body. It's a quick, interesting read. And you get to see him puke!
Posted by: johnlamb on 2/21/2008 at 6:07 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink