Yet More CFL Excellence

 Unlike spending fifty-five painful years rooting for the Minnesota Vikings, watching the CFL and attending CFL games only brings happiness. I guess the closest that the Vikings-induced pain would be being a Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan, as they currently are nursing the longest streak since their last Grey Cup win (it was last century/millennium). Maybe this is why all of my friends who I introduce to the CFL automatically become Tiger-Cats fans - I mean, how can you not love them? They have a cool (and non-sensical) team song and a band and a sing along in the fourth quarter and cool uniforms, FFS! This was the third time that I've attended a game at Hamilton, and if it weren't a ten hour drive I probably would have just gotten season tickets by now. Although, using that logic, why I haven't purchased Alouettes season tickets is even more of a mystery since I dragged nineteen people to Montreal games to the twenty-plus games I've attended there. One time I pitched the idea to my friends, with the notion that we'd buy two season tickets, I'd go to everyone and they'd cycle in and out. Shamefully, they didn't understand the brilliance of the scheme.

While I usually cringe a selfies, here's a nice one that my cousin Nick took at the game. I was so happy to meet him for the game (he's now the 20th person I've dragged to a CFL game). Unfortunately, the Tiger-Cats suffered a last second heart-wrenching loss to the Montreal Alouettes (which seems to be a Hamilton thing, sadly). 

Movies in 2026 178

 

Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)

Last night I watched one of my all-time movies: Krzysztof Kieslowski's classic 1993 film Blue, which is the first installment in his Three Colors trilogy. Inexplicably, neither the film itself nor Juliette Binoche were nominated for Academy Awards that year, which is more proof, as if we needed more proof, of the fact that America is a land of idiots. Binoche plays Julie, a woman suffering unimaginable pain after the death of her husband and daughter, and yet finding the emotional liberty (the three colors of the trilogy title are the three colors of the French flag) to live again. It is one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've ever seen, and Binoche's performance (despite the idiocy of the Academy) is legendary. I saw a documentary once where the story is told of Kieslowski having an assistant calculate how much time it takes for a cube of sugar to soak up coffee - if you've seen the movie you can see the scene in your mind. Required viewing. She's at the heart of my Beautiful, Dark, European Actresses With a Terrible Secret Hall of Fame.

Debs

 A dozen years ago, Sanford and I made our famous drive from Vermont to Oklahoma. The general structure of the class was his design (in  that he wanted to visit a town in Oklahoma, which I eventually figured out had originally been named Sanford - although to this day he still denies that he knew anything about that), but I did much of the day to day planning. Hence, we included stops at the Creation Museum, and the Dental School Museum, and Holcomb, Kansas (at the time he had never read In Cold Blood, but I had and it was very moving). In that vein, we also stopped in Terre Haute, Indiana to visit the Eugene V. Debs Museum. Sadly, we arrived just when they were closing for the day, and thus I had to wait almost a fifty of my long life to make it back. This time I arranged my entire trip so that I had plenty of time. As every right-thinking individual knows, the greatest Hoosier of all-time is Eugene Victor Debs (two through four are: Booth Tarkenton, Theodore Dreiser, and Kurt Vonnegut). When I walked into the museum, which is free, by the way and easy to find since it is essentially surrounded by Indiana State University, I was greeted by Allison, a very nice and incredibly knowledgeable young woman. She had also led the tour of the museum when Bernie Sanders stopped by, and she shared pictures of him from her own phone (Debs is a great hero of Bernie as well). Allison asked why I was visiting, and I told her the truth: Debs is a great hero of mine. This made her very happy, and freed her up to skip some of the basic information and devote more time to a deep dive.  I ended up more than two hours touring the museum, and it was an extraordinary experience.

I have this picture from the failed trip from the summer before I left for Abu Dhabi, but now I finally made my way inside.

This is the actual house where Debs lived.

Allison at the top of the stairs. Eventually a recent college graduate joined us - who had recently become interested in leftist literature and decided to stop by on a trip to Chicago. He was a really friendly young man, and one of those college students who actually give you hope for the future. When we finished up the tour, Allison asked if we'd like to just sit in the living room and talk about socialism. The answer, of course, was yes. 

Debs was rightly known for being a great speaker, and this was the final words of one of his most famous addresses. So many of his ideas beat the New Deal by about fifty years, and it would be a much better America today if we followed his advice.

His library.

A campaign placard from one of the five times he ran for president. In 1912, running for the Socialist Party, he received over six percent of the vote, which is an extraordinary amount for a third party candidate.

And, yes, the4 last time he ran for president he was in jail, a gross governmental overreaction to him having the courage to give speeches asking why poor men were being sent to fight an imperial war. He spent three years in prison (and had to be pardoned to get to that figure, otherwise he would he finished his life incarcerated) and it ruined his health. His book of prisons is a classic.

Movies in 2026 177

 

D.O.A. (Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, 1988)

I've previously mentioned that last month the Criterion Channel ran the odd collection of 1980s remakes. Now, with the exception of John Carpenter's remake of The Thing from Another World, all of the 80s versions were pretty bad. I had never watched the remake of D.O.A. before because I had a feeling that it was really bad. As it turns out, it was much worse than really bad, which justifies my earlier wisdom (which I've now clearly lost). It's just absolutely pathetic. I don't know if I can say anything good about it, other than if it hadn't been made then Dennis Quaide would have never met Meg Ryan and then they wouldn't have gotten married and then they wouldn't have cheated on each other and then they wouldn't have gotten divorced and then maybe learned something from the experience - so I guess there's that. Avoid at all cost.

But While You're There

 My trips are always highlighted by the odd little places that I find along the way. My last official stop was to see my friend Dave in Cincinnati, which left me a two day trip back. Now, a younger version of me would make that drive in one day, but not this shambling shell of a man. So, I decided to head due east from the Natti to return to the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. I first went there a year and a half ago after my father's passing. I needed some silly fun to drag me out of the blues, and it was well-worth the trip (although my attempt, at the time, to drive around a huge winter storm was unsuccessful). On this trip I wasn't sad and I wasn't avoiding any storms, but I wanted to breakup the end of the trip (one can only drive across Ohio and the New York Thruway so many times [although I ended up being unable to avoid the latter; I survived by reminding myself that I'd never, ever drive on it again]). I told my friends that I was revisiting the Mothman Museum, and a couple of them gave me some serious grief for it - but then quickly put in their orders.

I'm not saying that I wildly overspent at the Mothman Museum gift shop, although I receive not one, but two, complimentary gifts (I only received one on my last visit). 

Movies in 2026 176

 

The Consequences of Love (Paolo Sorrentino, 2004)

Yesterday I re-watched Paolo Sorrentino's 2004 film The Consequences of Love. I immediately became a huge Sorrentino fan, especially his film The Great Beauty (which would make the short list for my favorite film of this century). The Consequences of Love stars Sorrentino's frequent collaborator Toni Servillo, in one of his most internalized chameleon roles as Titta Di Girolamo. Trapped in a luxury hotel in Switzerland for eight years because of a mafia mix-up years earlier, Titta lives an incredibly regimented life, waiting around to perform a highly ritualized criminal chore. This all changes when he meets, and gives into his desire, for Sofia, a waitress at the hotel. He understands that this change in his routine will probably end terribly badly, which it does, although you get the sense that it a worthy tradeoff for a reawakening. Servillo, naturally, is brilliant, and Oliva Magnani (as Sofia) is also quite good. She's the granddaughter of legendary Italian actress Anna Magnani (of Rosselini's Rome, Open City fame), and clicks all the boxes for a classic Scudder crush: beautiful, dark, European actress with a terrible secret. The Consequences of Love is a great film, and I highly recommend it.

Jazz

 This trip was utterly exhausting - and my legs are not at all happy with me - but it was well worth the effort. My last stop was to drop by Cincinnati to see my old friend Dave, which was, as expected, wonderful. Whenever I see people, both on trips like this but also as I pass through my daily life, I become more and more aware that I will never see some of them ever again. This made this trip more than a bit bittersweet. If the Italian government and court system plays nice and we actually make it to Sicily, I just feel that I'm not going to come back much. I've been blessed to have so many extraordinarily smart, interesting and kind folks in my life, and the thought of never seeing them again breaks my heart.

Dave and his new puppy, Jazz. Obviously, the ghost of Dudley still haunted the place, because Jazz did his best to skeletonize my arm (which was, as with his predecessor Dudley, mainly my fault). Jazz is apparently 1% Polynesian Street Dog, so he wasn't taking any shit (although he's sweet as can be).