gullyfoyle

It's nice to spend Halloween with a friend!

Current Mood: Magic

This was the only photo I took today at the N. C. State Fair, from inside Dorton Arena. I kinda wish I'd snapped one of the 2.1 ton pumpkin or the giant surly tom turkey or the little girl after her father told her what would probably happen to that turkey next month, but I think all along I was unconsciously looking for one picture to symbolize the whole shebang, and this one will do.

Shadows on autumn trees, 6:30 PM Oct. 14, 2025, Research Triangle Park, NC.

building & trees casting shadows on trees at sunset

A puddle jellyfish spotted this evening in the parking deck at work. The phone camera amped up the color; it was much more subdued to the naked eye. I made no alterations myself to the photo.

What exactly is the titular little prayer of writer-director Angus MacLachlan’s 2023 feature A Little Prayer? The movie does not tell or show us, although we do see one character sitting silently for a few moments then uttering a quiet “Amen.” All the central characters in A Little Prayer have something, or someone, to pray for, but it’s left as an exercise for us the viewers to try to figure out what, or who, they may be praying for.

At the center of the movie is the Brass family, and at the center of the family is patriarch Bill, played by the always excellent David Strathairn. Bill owns a small business where his son David (Will Pullen) is the accountant, and Bill is beginning to suspect that David’s books – his own personal moral books, not the company’s – are not in order. David and his wife Tammy (Jane Levy) live in the guest house adjacent to the home of Bill and his wife, Venida (Celia Weston, the marvelous Southern character actress who provides most of the humor in the movie). Bill adores his daughter-in-law Tammy, and he fears that his son is cheating on her. The movie is not a mystery where David doggedly unravels the unpleasant truth. No, the movie is about David and his family simply trying to figure out what’s going on and what they should do, just as we all try to do, every day.

A Little Prayer begins with singing, a gorgeous hymn we hear as the camera tracks down a suburban street and comes to the Brass’s house. Someone in the neighborhood sings, soulfully, early in the morning. The characters never see her, nor do we. Like so much in the movie and in the lives of these characters, the singer remains offscreen, and it’s up to us to imagine who she might be and why she’s singing and for whom. Some in the Brass family love the singing and the mystery it presents and represents; for others in the family, it’s a nuisance approaching a public disturbance. Likewise, for the Brasses, events have a way of being both happy and sad. Bill and Venida are happy to see their daughter Patti and granddaughter Hadley arrive unexpectedly, but it’s because Patti’s fleeing a dubious domestic situation. Are the flighty Patti’s reports of the dire situation back home accurate, or does she just need money (again)? The Brasses dote over granddaughter Hadley, but why doesn’t she talk? What’s really going on?

The characters may not really know. We may not really know. Such is life. Such is this movie. It feels like the most realistic movie I’ve seen in years. The characters, the situations, the events, and the locations all combine to produce a cinematic reality that comes damn close to what’s generally acknowledged, at least in some quarters, as the real reality. As I watched, I kept thinking yes, that makes sense, that’s how people actually act, how they live, how they celebrate and how they suffer. Director MacLachlan and cinematographer Scott Miller make excellent use of locations in and around Winston-Salem; I wouldn’t be surprised if the low-budget movie was shot entirely on location and without studio sets. That of course adds to the realism.

A Little Prayer obviously can be compared to MacLachlan’s 2004 indie hit Junebug since both deal with contemporary North Carolina families under stress. But the movie I kept thinking of as I watched A Little Prayer was another movie about an aging man trying to hold himself and his family, such as it is, together: David Lynch’s sublime The Straight Story. In the latter, the old man is physically – and so of course also metaphorically – trying to reach his ailing brother. Here, Strathairn’s character isn’t being physically challenged, since he sees his son every day, but he is metaphorically foundering on the rocks of the younger man’s guilt, fear, lies, and anger. Another point of comparison is that both movies are informed by the effects of war and military service. Like Alvin Straight, both Bill and David Brass are combat veterans, Bill in Vietnam and David in Afghanistan or possibly Iraq. Several scenes in A Little Prayer are set in the local VFW hall, and one outside a funeral for another vet. Finally, both movies exude the feel of the real world, perhaps incongruously due to The Straight Story being a David Lynch film, but more acutely for the same reason. [Side note: I looked up the details on The Straight Story to make sure I had remembered the character’s name correctly, and I had. It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve seen it, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. Take that as an indication of how powerfully the movie affected me and how much I enjoyed it.]

So is there a happy ending? Yes and no. Is it a tragedy? Yes and no. It’s like real life. The characters adapt, sometimes they only endure, sometimes they return to the place from whence they came, but their stories go on. A Little Prayer reminds us that things can be happy and sad, hard and easy, rewarding and torturing. While speaking with a mother-to-be, a stunned and stricken Bill, having just had his worst fears about his son confirmed, says (and I paraphrase, not having written it down or with access to check the script) “You have children thinking they belong to you, but they don’t. They are their own persons. And they’ll grow up to break your heart.” Then he goes and gets drunk, and then the next morning life continues and he keeps doing what he hopes is right and best for his family. Maybe he’ll succeed, maybe he won’t, but it feels real. That’s reason enough to see this movie.

Somehow I'd never managed to read Lucius Shepard's Nebula-winning novella "R & R" (1986) until tonight. It performs not exactly a balancing, but instead a melding of science and fantasy, of surrealism and science fiction, of madness and clarity, of magic and whatever you want to call not-magic, but don't call it reality, the likes of which I'm not sure I've ever encountered before. Here was Shepard at the absolute top of his form, his writing at one moment stately and lush and measured as a hymn, then suddenly a punctuation of imagery as vivid and sharp as a needle to a nerve. It chronicles a few days in the life of an American soldier in a near-future war in Central America. On some levels -- the ones inside the protagonist, Mingolla (do I hear an echo of "Mandella" from The Forever War? -- apart from some of the technology, which includes berserker drugs, it could be any war, any time. But Shepard grounds the story in his expertly realized jungles, battlefields, towns and rivers of a war-riven Guatemala.

I find it incredible and saddening that, according to ISFDB, "R & R" has not appeared in an anthology since 1988, although its 80-page length may have worked against it in that regard. No matter. It was collected into The Best of Lucius Shepard in 2008, and the ebook of that is available for as little as $3.00. If you, like I, don't care for some of the stylistic excesses that appear in some of Shepard's stories, don't worry. The Best Of collection is easily worth it just for "R & R" alone. If I were a writer of stories, I'd consider myself lucky and blessed to write at least one during my life with the scope, depth, and emotional and visceral impact of "R & R."

Picture taken from our dining room window a little while ago. We had a line of strong storms come through. This was the biggest oak tree in the back yard, easily 3 or 4 feet across. It demolished a couple of substantial pines too as well as a big section of fence. But no damage to house, people, or domesticated animals. That was the tree where I once saw a flying squirrel, the only time I've ever seen one. The deck and house are gonna be getting a lot more sun. The tree fell directly away from the house, hence: lucky! But I know of at least one house in the neighborhood that suffered a hole in the roof.

I wasn't as scared as this picture makes me look, really. I enjoyed the quirky little Cryptozoology and Paranormal Museum in Littleton, NC. No link since their web site got hacked. The owner's currently having a hard time, so the place may not be around for much longer. Glad I finally got to see it. Now I'd really like to see the the big one in Maine.

Dan and the Big Guy

I had a good time at the last couple of Readercons, but I won't be attending this year. That weekend, friends and family will be gathering in N.C. to celebrate my father-in-law's ninetieth birthday. Hopefully I'll be back to the con next year, and I'm thinking of maybe trying for my first Boskone as well.

The bush that produced this one beautiful rose behind our mailbox died, I thought, a couple of years ago. But this year it grew back enough to produce this single flower which caught my eye today. It's been rainy recently and we're at the peak of near-tropical, lush, Ballardian green fecundity. But it's this speck of red that stands out for me.

single red rose

This popped up on my Facebook Memories page today, from 9 years ago. I don't remember posting it. But man do I like the song. It doesn't speak to me, it speaks for me.

Watch on YouTube

Current Music: well, duh

I know my brain chemistry's probably, let's say "eccentric," but I swear, in this picture I think he looks like Alan Tudyk.

Bucky portrait

New resident at Chez Reid: Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller Reid. We had the Embark DNA test done and the results broke all the betting brackets. In fact, the results are the doggie DNA equivalent of that old country song "I've Been Everywhere." Repeat after Bucky: I've got Beagle, Chow Chow, Russel terrier, Pekingese, American Pit Bull, German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever, Shih Tzu, Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, Australian Shepherd, I've got everything, man!" There's been some bodacious doggie doings going on in southwestern Virginia, let me tell ya! So welcome Bucky. He's smart, active, and doesn't appear to have a mean bone in his body. Cece dog was not happy in the beginning with the newcomer's constant playful attention, but she's coming around and Bucky's learned to dial it back, and while they may not yet be best buds, they are spending more and more time playing.

Okay, I'd add pictures, but all I get are tiny icon placeholders and the picture description. Can anyone advise why the embedding links aren't working?

[edit] See comments for pics. For some reason I can put pics in comments but not in main posts. WTF and good night.

Today, on the fifteenth anniversary of her death, here are the comments I wrote after I learned of it late in April, 2010. I miss her, and am glad she's not around to see the cesspool into which this country is swirling. I know times are hard. If you're having trouble coping, real trouble, don't hesitate to call (in the "United States") 988 Lifeline (https://988lifeline.org) or 1-800-273-8255, a service of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the "United States" Department of Health and Human Services, assuming DOGE hasn't cut its funding and fired its employees.

Dorothy Wright, 1962-2010

My friend Dorothy died last week, apparently a suicide. Born in Canada, a naturalized American who grew up in Pennsylvania, she’d lived for many years in London. She originally moved there to pursue a PhD in biology or biochemistry. She was close to completing it when she dropped it and took up a career in information technology. She’d worked for nearly nine years for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was my friend and more for over twenty-seven years, and she will always be a part of my life – a part of me – even though now she’s gone.

I met her in 1982 near the start of the fall semester at UNC-Chapel Hill, when she transferred there from Northwestern. She showed up at a meeting of either the science fiction club or the astronomy club, wearing a Narnia button. By the end of the semester we were dating, and soon I asked her to marry me. We were engaged for about two years, but it didn’t last. We broke up as a couple for good in the fall of 1985. That was her decision. Those two years and that awful sundering were more influential to the course of my life than anything else that happened in it up to the birth of my children.

She was intense, vibrant, and interested in everything. I loved science fiction and science, and so did she, but she also loved, and helped to introduce me to, theater, poetry, and classical music. Being with her and around her family – father from England and mother from New Zealand – made me feel more intensely alive and a part of the world than anything else: more than leaving home, more than being at a large university, more than getting to know the many writers and artists and fellow fans that I began to meet around that time through my involvement with the SF community.

It’s not possible in a few paragraphs to describe the intensity of that time or of her, or to summarize the many years of long-distance friendship that followed. She wasn’t perfect. She craved attention and longed to be part of a larger group, and was willing to sacrifice personal relationships to that longing. But I don’t think she ever found a group that she could belong to for more than a few years before she either moved on or was, basically, asked to leave. She could be jealous, envious, and paranoid, features not conducive to healthy group or personal dynamics. That didn’t matter to me. I loved her unconditionally. I don’t know how long I could have held on if we’d stayed together. Her intensity would have eventually, I’m sure, driven me away. She held on until April 19. I’m saddened beyond measure that my luminous, mercurial, exasperating friend is gone. She helped me become me, and so will always be a part of me. And I will always miss her. A paradox. Nothing could be more appropriate for Dorothy.

I love this from Roger Ebert in 1981: "...some of [QUEST FOR FIRE's] best scenes involve man's discovery of laughter. When one of the primitive tribesmen is hit on the head by a small falling stone, the woman from the other tribe laughs and laughs. Our heroes are puzzled: They haven't heard such a noise before. But it strikes some sort of deep chord, I guess, because later, one of the tribesmen deliberately drops a small stone on his friend's head, and then everybody laughs: The three men together with the woman who taught them laughter. That's human. The guy who got hit on the head is, of course, a little slow to join in the laughter, but finally he goes along with the joke. That's civilization."

My Goodreads review of The Last Dangerous Visions.

I'd give this an extra half star if possible just for Straczynski's lengthy essay on Ellison and the DV books. It's more enlightening about Ellison than the full-length biography from a few years ago. But half stars aren't possible here, and I can't bring myself to give the book 4 stars, so consider it 3.5 stars. Most of the stories simply aren't exceptional. Should you read it? If you're a serious SF reader and have read "Dangerous Visions" and "Again, Dangerous Visions," then yes, of course you should read it, if only because of the historical significance of the book. But this isn't an outstanding anthology. Too many duds, too many stories that are past their prime and out of their time and that have become irrelevant or embarrassing. Perhaps Straczynski should have split the project into two volumes: one with some of the older stories that Ellison bought, giving us a time capsule look at supposedly dangerous SF from 1973 to around 2000, and another volume of newer material from 2000 onwards. One of Straczynski's purchases, the James S. A. Corey story, is one of the better ones in the book, and the other more recent stories by Doctorow, Tchaikovsky, and Hartenbaum (their first publication) have some strengths. It would have been interesting to see more stories by other younger writers.

Hear is another repost from my old LiveJournal. Originally posted Dec. 3, 2006, this lament about the rapid development of rural areas on the outskirts of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill-Cary metroplex remains painfully relevant. Sometimes I'll be driving through a new development in a place that I remember being mostly trees and open fields not that long ago, and I'll have a dissociative moment of disorientation that I think must be something like what Alzheimer's sufferer go through. This has happened a couple of times in the past few months. (Maybe I'm just developing Alzheimer's.) Generally I quite enjoy living in this area, but I have to say I sometimes think with yearning about retiring somewhere a bit more stable.

Over the river and through the woods?

[Dec. 3rd, 2006|10:57 pm]

[	Tags	\|	triangle	]
[	mood	\|	overdeveloped	]

Every December for the last six or seven years, we've piled into the station wagon and headed down highway 55, then turned right and wended our way through the woods and farms toward Jordan Lake Christmas Tree Farm . We usually go out that way only once a year, so it always took a bit of guesswork to follow the correct turns and roads. But we always made it there, enjoying the rural scenery along the way, even if we had to cast about a bit.

Today, we almost didn't make it. We took the correct road from 55 -- as subsequent Google Maps investigation showed -- but as we drove along, instead of the farms and forests we remembered, we kept seeing more and more houses and apartments. Big ones. Lots of them. The road started deteriorating, a sign of overuse by heavy trucks and construction vehicles. Then the road expanded out into a pristine, flawless parkway in the midst of an enormous open (mostly treeless) area filled with 1) big new houses, 2) big new houses under construction, or 3) numerous small lots onto which big new houses will shortly be constructed. The new multi-lane turnpike -- where's the old road? I kept thinking -- was bordered with signs for "THE LODGE at Amberly" or something like that--I forget, but not enough. We eventually came to a dead end and had to turn around, go back the way we came, and take a different, longer route to the Christmas tree farm. On the mailbox of one of the older houses we passed was a sign that said, simply, "Stop Cary."

Current Mood: future shocked

Recorded from the deck. Fish crows (Corvus ossifragus) doing their thing. There's a lot of this in the afternoon this time of the year. We're also coming off a week or two of The Honkening, when the Canada geese fight it out for the best nesting spots alongside the lake.

Current Location: Lake Elton

Here's a joke I saw a standup comedian whose name I forget deliver on TV many years ago. Enjoy.

The boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini -- or maybe it's his father Lenny, also called "Boom Boom" -- is giving an interview.

Q: Boom Boom, how did you get that name?

A. They call me that because of the way I hit. Lemme show ya. <jabs with right> Boom! <jabs with left> Boom! <makes slow sweeping roundhouse punch> Maaaancini.

Thank you, thank you, don't forget to tip your waitress.

I honestly don't know why I like this joke so much, but it's stuck with me a long time and still makes me laugh. Need all the help I can get these days.

A work colleague who lives near Boston has for many years run Scriptor Press New England and published The Cenacle, a quarterly of prose, poetry, photography, and opinion. Please check it out. Have any of you heard of it, or even possibly have contributed to it? Looking at you,

sovay

Current Mood: proselytizing

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Scriptor Press New England and The Cenacle