...a rainy week here in Tucson...

...out-of-town friends stayed with us this past weekend; we introduced them to our local Gaslight Theatre, Sonoran hot dogs, the ruins in Tumacácori, the 'artsy village' of Tubac, and local Peruvian food. Hoo-boy.

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Last week, I finally took my wife to go see the film Avatar.
AMAZING special effects--but also remarkable, if you scratch the hyped 3-D surface: its profound pessimism.


How interesting that for the first time in decades,
a special-effects blockbuster does not end up with humanity saving the earth,
but with humans turning on their own kind in order to save something else--an almost-lost paradise of sorts.
So different from humans (almost always Americans) saving the earth from aliens or meteors, or finding a medical way to 'reverse' mutant-zombies.
An uncomfortable result of the film is that the crowds end up cheering against themselves--
against the bad-guys, which are the evil earthlings. The only 'good' earthlings are the ones who 'go native'...

What's the reaction from gung-ho military-types, I wonder?
Yes, yes, there is the irony that the director and studio are making millions (over a billion already!) due to a film with an anti-capitalist message.
No one's crying 'treason,' but...
The film's not subtle by any means...but it's not 'stupid' either; it's rich in allusions to myth, literature, religion, and film...
Anyway. Click here for an interesting CNN article about Avatar 'blues'--seriously.


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This past Sunday--opened up the paper--aha! published again; my cheap photo-thrill: click here for the link to the local Tucson paper's 'outdoor' feature with my photo...

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...can't post without mentioning last week's earthquake in Haiti, and the continuing chaotic suffering down there...Here in Tucson we know a couple of Haitian families who've been glued to their phones,
trying to contact relatives and friends...
''Disaster-fatigue" can sometimes set in, but, man...
wordless.

(...click here for a partially insightful NYTimes column on Haiti;

I don't agree with everything in the column, but such questions should be asked...)