Inspiration

Gutsy People: Thoughts About A Movie, A Book, And The Wider World

Yeah, Another Blogger90 Comments

When I comment about movies on these pages, I try to be a good guy by not revealing all, especially endings. I mean, for anyone with an itch to see a certain flick, that itch might damn near disappear if they become privy to too much telling information.

But a spoiler alert ain’t needed for Free Solo, a documentary profiling the great rock climber Alex Honnold that was released in September and is still in some theaters. That’s because the beans already have been spilled in every review and article that has been written about this movie. In other words, hell yeah, he made it to the top! To the top of El Capitan, that is, the monster, vertical wall of granite in California’s Yosemite National Park. And he reached the top, about 3,000 feet above ground, by climbing El Cap without ropes, a harness or safety equipment of any sort. And without a climbing partner or partners. That’s what free solo means. The only item, other than clothing, that Honnold wore while becoming the first (and, so far, only) person to accomplish this superhuman feat on El Cap was a small bag on his back that contained chalk, a substance he’d periodically coat his hands with, the better to grip the rock. (Others had scaled El Cap over the years, but always with ropes and additional equipment.)

What any rock climber does seems pretty well off the charts to me. Shit, I would make it about two feet off the ground on El Capitan’s face, maybe three. Which isn’t bad actually. Only 2,998 or 2,997 feet to go. But what Honnold did on June 3, 2017 was so far off the charts as to be laughable, in a magnificent way, and nearly inconceivable. The film crew that captured his exploits agree. Skilled rock climbers themselves, they are shown in the documentary, nervous as can be and totally awed by what was taking place in front of their eyes.

For anyone who has a taste for danger and suspense, this is a movie not to be missed. If possible, watch it in a theater rather than at home. Whatever the venue, the bigger the screen the better. My wife, brother and I went to see Free Solo in early November. We sat in the sixth or seventh row of a cinema, nice and close to the action. We were captivated. You will be too.

By the way, when I mentioned for anyone who has a taste for danger and suspense a few sentences ago, I meant to include and an appreciation of guts. As modest and unflappable as Alex appears in Free Solo’s interview segments, there’s no denying that he is in possession of an oceanic amount of guts, and I for one find his courage to be very inspiring, And although not too many people are going to try and scale giant rocks, it’s of course true that in less dramatic ways many or most of us display courage throughout parts or all of our lives. And that’s inspiring too. Hell, for much of humanity, simply getting out of bed and facing the day is a brave act, considering the nasty, even horrific, realities facing them.

I read the late novelist Kent Haruf’s final book, Our Souls At Night (it was published in 2015, the year after Haruf died), a few days after watching Alex climb. There are a variety of ways in which to look at Our Souls At Night, as there are with Free Solo. It’s about love and the lack thereof. It’s about emotional pains that do not fully heal. And it’s also about the guts shown by a man and a woman, each around 70 years old, who throw aside their normal inhibitions and begin a relationship with one another.

Addie Moore and Louis Waters, both widowed, are longtime neighbors who are acquainted only slightly. They live in Holt, Colorado, the fictional town that is the setting for all six of Haruf’s novels. But, as becomes apparent, Addie has had Louis on her mind for some time. One day she pays Louis a visit. Here’s some of what Haruf writes on Our Souls At Night’s second and third pages:

You probably wonder what I’m doing here, she said.
Well, I didn’t think you came over to tell me my house looks nice.
No, I want to suggest something to you.
Oh?
Yes. A kind of proposal.
Okay.
Not marriage, she said.
I didn’t think that either.
But it’s kind of a marriage-like question. But I don’t know if I can now. I’m getting cold feet. She laughed a little. That’s sort of like marriage, isn’t it.
What is?
Cold feet.
It can be.
Yes. Well, I’m just going to say it.
I’m listening, Louis said.
I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.
What? How do you mean?
I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me. And talk.

Wow! Addie has guts. An abundance of it. Don’t know how many folks in her age bracket would do what she does. Couldn’t be a lot. In any event, Louis accepts Addie’s offer. They begin their affair — a platonic one at the start — cautiously. And, finding that they are getting along just fine, take it to higher levels. They become a strong and true couple, telling each other their life stories, opening up more than they did to their deceased spouses.

Addie and Louis do not go unnoticed in Holt. Snide and angry comments and actions come their way from the small-minded, which includes Addie’s adult son Gene. How do Addie and Louis end up? Hey, unlike with Free Solo, I’m not revealing the conclusion, a conclusion that I found to be wanting in relation to what had preceeded it. Still, I give Our Souls At Night a thumbs-up. Haruf, as is clear from his words above, writes beautifully. His style is direct and unflowery, and the book’s characters feel real.

Alex Honnold doesn’t boast about courage in Free Solo. Neither do Addie Moore or Louis Waters in Our Souls At Night. In fact, the three barely talk about it. But they each own courage and use it for their personal betterment, and in manners that bring no harm to others or to the natural world.

(As always, comments are welcomed. Thanks.)

Plaza Blanca Knocked Our Socks Off: New Mexico, Part Two

Yeah, Another Blogger70 Comments

 

Sandy and Neil in Frijoles Canyon
Rio Grande Gorge

For the last few days I’ve been thinking about what I should include in the second installment about my recent adventures in sun-drenched New Mexico. Climbing up ladders attached to the sides of cliffs in Frijoles Canyon (part of Bandelier National Monument) — to reach niches within which indigenous peoples lived centuries ago — seemed a natural, as did viewing the deep and dangerous Rio Grande Gorge just outside of Taos village. But you know what? No more will I now say about those experiences, as excellent as they were, because wafts of inspiration caressed my face a little while ago. And, as I’ve learned over the last few years, one shouldn’t argue with inspiration. This story, therefore, shall be about Plaza Blanca.

Plaza Blanca

May 29, the last full day of my wife Sandy’s and my visit to New Mexico, found the two of us inside a Honda Accord being driven by my brother Richard. We were on our way from Santa Fe, where Richie lives with his wife Sara, to Abiquiu, an area famously known as the one-time home of the late, great painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Richie had printed out some information about the sights in the Abiquiu region and, 10 minutes into the journey, asked me to take a look. Scanning the pages I noticed a paragraph about Plaza Blanca (The White Place), described as unusually beautiful. “Hey, let’s go there,” I said. Nobody objected.

Luckily I found a website that provides precise driving directions to Plaza Blanca, because it’s not the easiest locale in the world to find. The final leg of the motorized segment of the journey was upon a dirt road. Expecting numerous ruts and holes, we were relieved to see almost none. Richie parked the car in Plaza Blanca’s small parking section. Then the three of us got out and looked around. From first glance we knew that we were in a special place.

We spent an hour hiking through Plaza Blanca, a masterful collection of rock formations not far from forested mountains. The sun was high in the sky, clouds were few, and the views, to employ a cliché, were awe-inspiring. I’ve gone limp now and then over the years from the beauty of what was in front of my eyes, but that hadn’t happened in a good long while. And, now that I think about it, I hadn’t been as stunned by a natural landscape or seascape since 1982. That was the year of my trek through the high Himalayas in Nepal, the one truly astonishing adventure of my life.

And I wasn’t the only one to gaze in wonder at Plaza Blanca’s cliffs and columns, or at its other wildly surreal sculptures. Sandy and Richie were as spellbound as me. We were in a stark fairyland where strange, beguiling shapes reigned supreme. The formations sat stoically, yet pleased with themselves. They knew that they are remarkable creations. I caught Richie staring unbelievingly at one vista, imperceptibly shaking his head and not quite knowing what to say except for the obvious: “This is incredible” were his words.


As for Sandy, she agreed when I suggested that Plaza Blanca likely was the most beautiful and fantastic landscape she’d ever set foot in. A compact expanse of desert, Plaza Blanca is where one might go to let the problems circulating within one’s head fade away for a bit of time. It’s where you likely will be able to engage undisturbedly with the powers of nature, since Plaza Blanca is off the beaten track compared to many other spectacular sites. Only two other souls crossed our paths as we made our way around. That was two too many, but it was far better than the hundreds you’d encounter at the Grand Canyon or at Yosemite.

A geologist I’m not, but from what I’ve been able to piece together, Plaza Blanca is the result of volcanic activity that took place roughly 20,000,000 million years ago, and of the subsequent effects of heavy erosion. Its cliffs and other structures are composed of varieties of sandstone and of other types of rocks. The place was drier than the driest bone the day that my trio was there. But I’ve read that flash floods sometimes develop during heavy rains, racing mightily between the giant pieces and with the potential to sweep incautious visitors away.

Georgie O’Keeffe, From The White Place. Image copyright: The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation/Artists Rights Society, New York.

Georgia O’Keeffe was smitten with Plaza Blanca (as she was with much of New Mexico). She wandered around and painted in The White Place many times. Her desert homestead was about 15 miles away. I wouldn’t mind owning one of her renderings, From The White Place, pictured above, which she painted in 1940. It would look smashing on a wall beside my living room sofa. I doubt if the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., where the painting is housed, plans to put it up for auction anytime soon. If they do, however, I’m ready to launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $20,000,000 or more that will be required to make it mine.

Sandy and Richie in Plaza Blanca

As I mentioned in my previous essay, staying very hydrated in New Mexico is the thing to do. The Sun there can be brutal. I’d been downing water conscientiously before arriving at Plaza Blanca and continued to do so during my hike on site, but there was no point in taking any unnecessary risks. My companions must have felt the same way. Without discussion we took our last looks at Plaza Blanca, immersing ourselves in its glory. And then we made our way out from between the art works and headed back to the car.

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(All photos are by Sandra Cherrey Scheinin, with three exceptions: Richard Scheinin took the photo of Sandy and me. I took the photo of Rio Grande Gorge and the one of Sandy and Richie.)

The No Bell Prize

Yeah, Another Blogger27 Comments

Before I threw this blog into gear, in April of last year, I’d hardly ever looked at any of the who knows how many millions of blogs that flap their wings in cyberspace. Since then, though, I’ve become a blog addict and have clicked on the pages of at least a thousand. Most I’ve never revisited, for reasons only my valet Jeeves is privy to. But there are over 100 whose words and images I imbibe anywhere from occasionally to frequently. And that’s because they are good. Real good in numerous cases. If anyone had told me in April 2015 that Planet Earth houses many times more strong thinkers and boffo writers and discerning photographers than I ever imagined, I’d have responded “yeah right, and I’m going to win the Nobel Prize in Literature before this decade is out.” Well, all I can say is that I now am totally impressed, and intimidated, by the oceans of citizens who can turn a sweet phrase and/or snap a fine photo. And despite the obvious fact that a Nobel isn’t part of my future, I’m here to announce somewhat reluctantly that a No Bell is. More about that later.

Intimidated. Yes, that word surely applies to me. Trying to keep pace with the many who, anywhere from twice a week to daily, knock out good stories for their blogs intimidates me. I mean, it’s all I can do to compose a ditty once a week. Twice a week or more often than that? Ain’t about to happen anytime soon. I’m more likely to pack my bags for the Himalayas and scale Mount Everest or K2.

Inspiration that leads somewhere is what it boils down to, and some writers have it up the wazoo. Me, uh uh. Take one day last week, for example. I hit my blog’s “Publish” button early that morning, lofting my latest masterwork, Ponds, into the ethers. Hours later I was sweating up a storm, racking my brains for a topic I could wrap my head around and turn into another addition to the publication whose sentences you presently are glued to. The pressure was on. If something didn’t emerge pretty soon I’d be in sharp danger of being empty-handed when, the following week, the “Publish” button coolly beckoned me to depress it confidently. Becoming more desperate by the minute I yelled to myself “come here, topic, come here. Be a good boy and come here.”

And who’d have guessed it? Next thing I knew a few ideas began to dribble in. Starting to feel better I grabbed a pen and a pad and scribbled some notes.

img_1254Cape Cod were the first words I jotted down. Sure, how about another opus about The Cape? My previous two fell into that category, so why not make it a threepeat? On the other hand, I quickly decided, fuhgeddaboudit. I needed to point my blog in a direction away from The Cape, if only temporarily, before my meager readership abandoned ship entirely. “Cape Cod, my love,” I said to myself, “I’ll come back to you. Sooner rather than later. Wait for me, my dearest. Please wait.”

monkey-scratching-headIf not Cape Cod, what then? A few more words transferred from my brain cells to paper: Movies That Made Me Scratch My Head. Not a bad idea, I thought, as I’d seen two action flicks in October that I enjoyed but whose plots, par for the course for me, I couldn’t keep up with. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, a Tom Cruise-led endeavor, and Ben Affleck’s The Accountant were the films in question. Sitting back on my living room sofa I tried to bring Reacher and Accountant to life in my mind, but had only middling success. I could barely recall the plot twists that a few weeks earlier I’d been scratching my head about. Like much of my life, they’d faded into wispy memories. What, you expect a body to take notes when he goes to the movies in the event he might want to comment pointedly on them for his blog? I’ll take it under consideration.

You get the picture. I played around with a couple of other ideas and ended up tossing them aside too. And so, here I am with an essay about not much of anything. And the “Publish” button is staring me in the face. What’s a boy to do? That button is a demanding and inscrutable entity, one best not to ignore. It’s anyone’s guess what ghastly forces might be unleashed if I do.

In conclusion, I return to the aforementioned No Bell Prize. Here’s the situation: I have it on good  authority that next week I will be invited to Stockholm, Sweden, where, should I accept the invitation, I would be presented in December with a document inscribed as follows: We at The No Bell Institute Of Blogging Mediocrity hereby state that Neil Scheinin’s blog post from November 10, 2016 is not ring-a-ding-ding. It is unworthy of any number of bells, not five, not even one. No bells being more like it, we are issuing this certificate to Mr. Scheinin.

Ouch!

Oy vey!!

Onward and Upward!!!

 

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