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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Lammass Wiccane

Some plants and trees grow lammass leaves to replace those lost to pestilence. During global pandemics humans might burn to repopulate planet. Makes sense. On August 1st, Christian calendar coincides with Wiccan Wheel of the Year. Loaf Mass Day tithes harvest of wheat to church, while Lammass handfasting binds two betrothed witches together. Both were already lost rituals before being within 6 feet of each other came with a Surgeon General’s warning; make that 30 feet for bicyclists without masks, who intercept airborne particles faster around every corner. Grateful folks relish abundance of fresh summer fruits and veggies. One defines intelligence as adaptability to whatever envelopes you, mostly strife over harvests versus enemies. Suggests motives for merciless misuse and power abuse, for example, how King Herod, reacting to St. Peter’s being freed from chains by an angel and heading right onto Rhoda, killed blameless captors.

For centuries stories idolized adventure and violence, pandered to patronage or wealth, or represented the best and worst of talents and urges, typically with selfish agendas. Hard to discuss greatness or mediocrity of cultural artifacts, since they merely reflect collectively whoever you associate with them. Even so, internet searches for bicycling movies and scenes provide articles that rate instances with false consensus. Hacks who write them just copy one another. It’s as if a few were inadvertently culled and sanctified as sacrifices. Thousands more apposite get passed over. With so many contending for attention, less than half of films even return their investments in ad placements, ticket sales, video rentals, and whatever produces profits. Popularity will never be the measure of mastery. Artistry lies in not exposing its artificiality but projecting authenticity and reality.

Dr. Mercer (Harris Yulin) sends discredited cryptobiologist Mr. Dempsey (Ted Danson) on one last mission to Loch Ness (John Henderson, dir., 1997). With latest electronic gear, he’s resigned to disprove The Monster as a hoax and drink beer. Toward end of his 5-day stay, madam innkeeper’s (Joely Richardson) young daughter (Kirsty Graham) strikes a bargain with him; she’ll show them to him if he’ll buy her a red bicycle. He agrees, and she does (made lifelike by Jim Henson). True to his word, he keeps creatures an unsolved legend and returns with promised bike on board with hopes of calling inn his home having formed a strong bond with mom.

Sat through a plotless hour of bikers on BMXs and fixies doing dodgy stuff To Live and Ride in LA (David Rowe, dir., 2011) along its decidedly unfriendly streets designed specifically for motorists. One bicyclist on a limited access highway between high speed lanes shames horrified viewers as nervous newbies, although you sense it’s such stunts that cause bulk of fatal bike accidents. This is so typical of examples that Google searches provide: Doping exposés, racing action, or reckless abuse that attempt to stereotype riders as drugged, drunken or obsessed losers and senseless risk takers. With 60 million American bicyclists, every demographic is represented, including BMX kooks, commuters avoiding gridlock and subways, intrepid tourists, kamikaze messengers, license revoked recidivists, mamils chasing wamils, middle aged affluents, peloton training teams, savvy teens, school kids, tired retirees, those too poor to afford other means, weekend sportifs, young adults, zealous activists. Each have a right to every bit of pavement unless banned, not confined to broken shoulders, derelict parks, unswept gutters, or wooded trails. Don’t be surprised behind your steering wheel when one passes you. For perspective one might look back to documentary Taken for a Ride (Jim Klein, dir., 1996), which exposed General Motors malicious plot to eliminate competition from mass transit and foster dependency on automobiles, not only in LA but throughout nation. It led to anti-road protests, freeway revolts, highway removals, and relocations underground.

The Runway (Ian Power, dir., 2011) is a dramedy based on fact set in 1983 rural Cork, Ireland. Precocious bicycling delinquents Paco (Jamie Kierans) and pal Frogs (John Carpenter) have set up their own SETI station for seeking Spielberg’s E.T. using electronics they’ve swiped from merchants and townsfolk when they aren’t abiding bully abuse or breaking abandoned windows. Paco actually finds one in downed Colombian pilot Ernesto (Demián Bichir), who has run away with a fortune in emeralds. Anticipating his dad unlikely return from Spain, Paco had been learning conversational Spanish, so acts as translator and convinces town to help while serving own needs. They fix and refill plane and, to get it airborne, pave a tarmac runway.

In an oil deprived dystopia, where residents must bike or walk, everything is seriously Upside Down (Juan Solanas, dir., 2012) for Adam (Jim Sturgess), who falls for Eden (Kirsten Dunst). A decade later, when he learns she survived a real, seemingly fatal fall, he embarks on a quest to restore their relationship. Only thing, Eden and everything from her half of this binary planet obeys an opposite, potentially deadly gravity. Otherworld interaction is forbidden by law. She also has amnesia, so remembers nothing from before accident including him. What do filmmakers have against Ms. Dunst, who routinely gets battered or beaten in every script?

Juliana Betancourth stars as Columbian bicyclist Virginia Casta (Claudio Cataño, dir., 2017). Says unseen narrator, “I’ve always loved movies. I found them a portal to another world, another life. I was amazed.” Most only save a few frames of their lives as memories, usually the least enjoyable ones. Commuting to office cube and shopping in downtown Cali, Virginia cruises about on a ballon tire, blue colored, girl’s basket bike, often on crumbled sidewalks, which cause her to tumble. Driving aggression on nation’s streets was well documented by Bogotá mayor Peñalosa. A nightclub session of restroom sex leaves her pregnant, but, recently bereaved of her mother, she can’t go through with an abortion. Dancing in street, reveling in life, she run down by a texting motorist. Three years ago too few wore condoms, never mind masks. Not enough to fit one on, it must be kept clean, not be touched during use, which makes contagion contact mouth and nose, and wash hands frequently and thoroughly. Furthermore, you have to disinfect anything you bring into your home, especially groceries or mail, and stuff you repeatedly touch, like car latches, doorknobs, shifters, steering wheels, even take shoes off before entering. Yet world today is not so very different considering ongoing prevalence of worse diseases: Hepatitis C, HIV, STDs, Tuberculosis, and whatever else displeases.

Four Australian tourists - Angus Morton, Justin Diamond, Patrick Drapac and Sami Sauri - teamed up to explore Outskirts: Route 66 (Angus Morton, dir., 2018), including what culture still remains around this iconic High Street from Chicago to Los Angeles completed nearly a century ago but fallen in spots to feral ruin across 8 states, 2,400 miles, spread through 3 time zones. Luckily they had motel reservations and vehicle support so rode light without bags for a month on road. “Bicycling... can’t escape it. It’s a drug in itself.” Cross section of characters they meet paints a portrait of basically good but pathetically ugly Americans.

Jochen Mesle and Max Kroneck do Aussies one better as they bike between Ice&Palms (Philipp Becker, dir., 2019, headed south in spring from German border through The Alps to sultry Nice, France. Their itinerary crosses mountain passes, hikes alpine trails, and skis favorite peaks, at one point with their bikes on their backs. They sleep in tents totally unsupported for their month on, well, only occasional roads. Took a while learning how to handle bikes with a load unbalanced by bindings, boots and skis.

Ginger tween bicyclist Gerda Lie Kass discovers she’s not only a Wild Witch (Kaspar Munk, dir., 2019, Danish dubbed in English), but the one destined to overcome an evil plot against nature. Is she Denmark’s answer to Charmed one Alyssa Milano? Black cat Oscar intentionally cuts her off to spark her recognition that he’s her familiar animal friend. If being coven’s most powerful entity is no match for some kid trained to breath right, you might choose another avocation. It’s the Harry Potter snare designed to catch gullible childish unaware, since adults aren’t so easily dazzled and don’t care. Not like witches aren’t repeatedly linked with bicycling (e.g., Anathema Device, Wicked Witch of West Oz) ever since this freedom machine disenthralled women from household drudgery and emboldened them to take their rightful place in society. Patriarchy could never relinquish control so readily, would kill to intimidate half of society.

A documentary on positive ecological practices to ensure a Tomorrow (Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, dirs., 2019) focuses on automotive overthrow, conscript representatives instead of elections, distributed agriculture and manufacture, energy alternatives (geothermal, solar, water, wastes, wind), local currencies (slows cash exportation), manual not oil based farming, permaculture, subsidized composting, transportation alternatives (bike, bus, trains), urban planning, and vegetarian over meat based diets. Surprisingly, some cities, fed up with multinational oligarchies, have long since adopted, though all merely revisit 1960’s with Whole Earth and Woodstock Nation. Each was described and endorsed by Bike&Chain over a decade ago. After designating more pavement for self propulsion, 67% of Copenhagen residents now bike, take mass transit, or walk, which improves city lives exponentially. Economist Jeremy Rifken explains, “[With too much atmospheric CO2] we are now in real time climate change... The whole water cycle of the planet is thrown off... violent winter snows, more dramatic spring flooding, more prolonged summer droughts, severer hurricanes... Our scientists tell us, on all the studies, we are now actually in the 6th extinction event of life on Earth. This is the most important piece of news the human race has ever had... There have only been 5 extinction events in the last 450 million years where there has been a wipeout of life. And it comes quick... death on a mass scale.” On another 100° day amidst burnt out gardens, one wonders how much heat it will take to wipe out biosphere entirely, or whether it’s already too late to remedy. From the soundtrack, Leonard Cohen in 1987 foretold, “Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes... And everybody knows that the Plague is coming... that it's moving fast... Everybody knows the scene is dead, but there's gonna be a meter on your bed that will disclose what everybody knows. And everybody knows that you're in trouble... what you've been through... Everybody knows it's coming apart. Take one last look... before it blows.”

Along those lines, documentary Motherload (Liz Canning, dir., 2020) describes the cargo-bike movement. Hundreds of people testified how they replaced their cars altogether with electric assist and manually pedaled units that fuse a bicycle with a trailer. “I just got groceries on my bike!” For those long sold on an automotive paradigm it sound like some amazing revelation, when, after all, cyclists with backpacks, baskets and panniers have been doing this for centuries. Biggest problem is all bicycling supplies produced on other side of planet arrive by fossil fuel means, so just increase carbon footprint unless they curtail motored miles by half or more. Moms making an exceptional trip doesn’t save planet, but it might be a start toward going daily for fresh air and bread.

Taking it to ultimate is Pedal (Scott Hardesty, dir., 2017) about video diarist Hera van Willick who lived the dream of life by bike entirely borderless and mobile. She spent a decade traveling through 43 different countries calling wherever she was home. Since COVID outbreak, US citizens aren’t permitted to enter 33 other nations, not that they were ever welcome in many anyway. You never know when a dream suddenly gets indefinitely suspended.

Clever YouTube video covers lyrics of Queen’s Bicycle Race by collecting movie clips related to each crazy phrase, many bicycling scenes previously described, others unrelated to bikes, and some never mentioned, e.g., Malèna (Giuseppe Tornatore, dir., 2000), who’s every boy’s sex harassment and every woman’s jealous gossip in 1941 Sicily. The last cited was Coen Brothers big budget flop Suburbicon (George Clooney, dir., 2017). Gardiner Lodge (Matt Damon), beset by gangsters, races away from a fire bombing on a kid’s bike. Loosely based on an 1957 instance of racial integration of all white Levittown, PA, it shows supposedly decent folks behaving badly throughout. Only Damon’s son Nicky (Noah Jupe) survives mayhem.



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