I Saw the Sign

The owl came back!

So the artist formerly known as my Unit¹ and I were sitting outside on the patio steps again around 8 p.m. when Dogzilla raced straight across the yard to the back.  Sure enough, the owl was back because we saw her/him/them raise wings and effortlessly move to the right, out of Dogzilla's charge.

And we both oohed and ahhed.

And as before I immediately put the circus dog back inside (at just 13 lbs. he may very look like food to an ambitious bird of prey), and Dogzilla came bounding back to us with that look of, "OMG YOU GUYS DID YOU SEE THAT!?"

We went inside; I refilled my drink and immediately went back out to see if the owl would come back, but not before yelling down the stairs to my bird-nerd sister that "THE OWL IS BACK!"  Within moments of being outside again, s/he landed on the neighbor's swing set.  Bird-Nerd-Sister came outside quietly armed with binoculars.

We stayed out there for well over an hour, watching as the owl moved around, trying to hunt something on the lawn; sometimes s/he was very close to where we were sitting (well, close as far as I was concerned).  S/he is also still a big fan of the power line from the night before.  At one point s/he was "just walking on the tightrope," per my sister; there was a large tree in my view, but I could see the line bouncing a bit as the owl strutted.

We did, of course, take a moment to raise our glass to her/him/them.  Salut.

And because we are sisters, we argued a bit.

Bird-Nerd-Sister: "It's not a barn owl. It's definitely not a snowy. It's not a long-eared owl."
Me: (muttering) "Owls don't have ears."
BNS: "They do, too! They have holes in the side of their head for hearing."
Me: "Those are ear holes, not ears" (about to launch into the differences between seals and sea lions, including ear holes versus ear flaps)
BNS: "What kind of owl is it??"
Me: "You are asking the wrong-ass person." (beat) "What if it's here to give us our letters to Hogwart's??"
BNS: (laughing quietly)
Me: (hissing in owl's general direction) "You're late!"
BNS: (laughing more) "Here I thought we were going to argue about whose letter it was going to deliver, and you're busy sayin' 'bish, you're late.'"

And as before, when it got completely dark, the street lamp from across the way would catch the underside of the owl's wings and their breast feathers, especially during those brief flights.

Me: (soon insisting we refer to the owl as "she")
BNS: "As much as I hate to say it, it's probably a he. It's pretty small, and females are bigger."
Me: "Maybe it's a really small type of owl, and she's actually quite large."
Me: (happy gasp at another view of wings and light) "Oooh, it's like the opening of Labyrinth!" (another gasp) "What if it's the spirit of David Bowie??"
BNS: "That's it. I'm calling it 'Bowie' from now on."

Eventually my Bird-Nerd-Sister went inside, and I said aloud, "Well, it's just you and me, owl."  By the time I extinguished both of the citronella torches, Bowie had made it to the power line, the fence line, and then grass to my left (just beyond the torch I had just extinguished).  When I finally went inside (out of wine), they were back on the power line with no intention of going anywhere.

I may be the unofficial Queen of Small Animals, but birds are usually the exception.  If you know me at all, you know that I don't usually get along with birds, nor they with me.  The feeling is entirely mutual.  As I told my former Unit, I don't interact with Nature often, but when I do, it's always adventurous (read: "disastrous") and occasionally just a tiny bit awesome and magical.

And the former Unit commented earlier on all of the birds we've seen lately.  First, there was the hawk several times over a week or so.  "Hawks are messengers," she said.  "But I wasn't getting the message."

Then, within a day of our separation, there was the hummingbird.  Sometimes she saw it, once my sister saw it, but many times (like four times in two days), it was just me.  "Hummingbirds mean joy," she said.

And now the owl -- wisdom.

It may not seem like that big of a deal to you, but keep in mind all of these encounters have happened in the past month or so.  And frankly, a hummingbird?  In the Midwest?!?  I've never seen one outside of California before.

I'm not always one to believe in real-life "signs" and symbolism, but when the former Unit listed them outright like that, I had a shiver go up my spine, despite the summer heat.





¹We are in the process of separating.

Movie Review: Doctor Strange

Leonard finally made it out of the house to see a movie!  And there was much rejoicing throughout the land.  We opted for a date with just us and our favorite pasty Brit, Pumpernickel Cumbersnatch.  Before we get into the review proper, though, trailers!

• I hadn't seen the trailer yet for Logan.  If there was ever a perfect pairing of a trailer and a song, Logan with Johnny Cash's rendition of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" was it.
• There was much chair-dancing and internal squeeing when the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 trailer came on.
• Matt Damon and The Great Wall:  what the fuck is that shit??  It seemed very,....I don't know.  Too much.  Too much CGI, trying to shove too much awesome into one package, the incredibly wrong vehicle for Mr. Damon.  Aha!  This blogger sums up my feelings accurately:  "general disdain, not for inserting fantasy into history, but [for] doing it badly."

Now onto our regularly scheduled goodness:  let's address the White Elephant in the room.  Whitewashing.  In fact, I'm going to come back to this because I need to do some research.  Let's write my other thoughts down first. ==> All done!  So Tilda Swinton.  She is amazing.  And I'm all for previously male roles being given to women; rather being made into something androgynous, and especially played by someone as breathtakingly beautiful/androgynous as Tilda Swinton.  But not at the expense of whitewashing a non-Caucasian character.  And it's not like they tried to simply make The Ancient One a woman; they changed him/her from a man born in "land high in the Himalayas" to a (bald) Celtic woman.

Yeah, that's not even a little bit similar.

That's quite a difference.
This article explains the studio's decision a bit, but completely ignores the race/ethnicity factor.

Just to make sure I wasn't overlooking something, I looked up the original Doctor Strange comics as well; however, I can't find evidence that Dr. Stephen has been anything other than a gray-at-the-temples white dude:

You, sir, are no Sherlock Holmes!

Thoughts on the movie proper, in bullet-point style as we do around here:

1. Benedict Cumberbatch.  Benedict.  Ben.  Benny.  Can I call you Benny? Maybe just 'Dict.  You know I love you.  I have loved you since before most people even heard of Sherlock.  You starring in an honest-to-goodness superhero movie seems like the merging of all of my interests.  I would gladly pay money to listen to your basso profundo rumble across my eardrums, even just reading the phone book.  Or a take-out menu.  (Although I vote for phone book because it would take longer.)  -- in your original, natural dialect.  Your U.S./American dialect needs work, my love.  Some British actors can get it and it doesn't sound weird in their mouths (Hugh Laurie comes to mind).  But yours:  several vowel sounds were a bit "off" (like in the word "chart") and "r" sounds were odd, which is a distracting thing when one's character's name is "DoctoR Stephen StRange."  And perhaps it was an attempt to take the beautiful clipped British diction/enunciation out of the picture, but your words often sounded slurred -- and not just when your character was coming out of a drug-induced surgery/coma/car accident.  When I caught the mid-credits scene, my first thought was "Crap, more of this!" but hopefully it means you'll have more practice between now and the next movie.  Call Hugh Laurie, get the name of his dialect coach, and get back to me.
2. The Award for Best Sidekick goes to...The Cloak of Invisibility Levitation!  Chiwetel, my friend, you've been upstaged by a costume piece.  Seriously, I loved the cloak, and it nearly upstaged all y'all.  It reminded me a bit of the magic carpet in Disney's Aladdin; however, Aladdin's sidekickery was spread out across the magic carpet, Abu (the monkey), and almost Robin Williams as the Genie (although he was such a genius he was pretty much the star of that movie and was upstaged by no one, let alone a costume.  Or rug.).  The Cloak added a fair amount of levity (see what I did there?) and even got an "Awww!" out of me during the mirror scene.  Speaking of the comedy...
3. Dying is easy; comedy is hard.  Recent film-makers (in the past decade or so) have hopped onto the Joss Whedon bandwagon of mixing humor with cosmos-shaping derring-do's.  In his words:  "Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke."  With most things, Mr. Whedon makes it sound easy, but it is, indeed, a fine balance of using some humorous bits to diffuse intense, dramatic situations; better than just defusing, the really great artists make it come out of nowhere where you'd never put that funny bit.  This movie attempts that balance, but ends up a bit heavy-handed on both ends of the spectrum which then comes across as "trying too hard."  This is nit-picky stuff on my end, but the balance of the comedy and the timing just wasn't quite there.  The funny was trying too hard, too obviously to be funny; the drama was slightly pretentious, and the back and forth between them only highlighted these disparities, rather than balancing them.  Which brings us to #4..
4. Benedict IS funny.  I know he is.  I've seen it before.  It's a very dry sort of British funny (as Sherlock Holmes) and sometimes just flat-out silly (as himself), but it's there.  However, the comedy (as written) in Doctor Strange did not do him any favors.  The rhythm of this particular humor, which has a sort of American cadence to it (if I may be so arrogant to say so) did not find its way into my Pumpernickel Bendersnatch's delivery.  Like #3, it just wasn't quite there.  In this kind of situation, a director/producer has two options;  retrain the actor (read:  give them line-readings) OR rewrite the dialogue to a patter(n) that better fits their skills.  I think the latter would have been feasible here; play to Wonderland Bandersnatch's strengths, please.
5. Fancy hands.  I love fancy hand movements!  Whether it's sorcery, illusionists, card tricks, or Michael Moschen as David Bowie's hand-double, I love 'em!  Wish I didn't have tiny hands; I can't even snap my fingers.  

   

   That's right.  The Goblin King doesn't spin his own balls.

6. Wong.  Wong is awesome.  Wong's real name is Benedict Wong; the levels of meta happening here are just delightful, as is Wong's portrayal and (eventual) laughter.

Moral of the Story:  don't look at body scans and drive....unless you want to be a SUPERHERO!!!!

End result:  I did enjoy it.  Will I purchase it when the time comes?  Absolutely, don't ask stupid questions.  Do I hope for improvements between now and the next Doctor Strange movie?  For love of all things Marvel, YES.

I didn't write this, but I could have.