Tiger's Tales

Thirsty owls, curried soup, sunshine and waterfalls

Well the plan to blog every day came to...not very much, apparently! Anyhow...it's been a fantastic few days so far, feeling very relaxed and enjoying the break muchly.

We arrived safely on Monday evening (US time) after a mostly uneventful journey (luggage nearly being sent to San Francisco notwithstanding!!)and enjoyed warm hospitality and a truly enormous pizza!

Tuesday we took a little stroll around downtown Ithaca - very laid-back and studenty (it is the home of Cornell University, after all!) - lunch at a German/European cafe, Brotchen, browsing in a couple of bookstores (a dangerous thing indeed, I only have about 5 kg spare on my luggage weight limit) and making a beeline for one of the yarn stores in the town, the Homespun Boutique. Tucked a little bit out of the way on East State Street but well worth the visit - Malabrigo, Aslan Trends, Cascade, and a whole load of other well-kent yarn names. Just as well DH was encouraging me to pick something out - if I'd stayed too much longer the holiday funds would've been seriously depleted!! Came away with a ball of Ty-Dy Socks in autumnal colours, should make a fine pair of stripy socks :)

Wednesday we picked up the hire car and took a run out to Allan H Treman Marine State Park, had a walk by the water, saw massive dragonflies (sorry no photos, they were too quick!) and were nearly deafened by all the bugs singing in the grass - boy those little fellas are loud!! Didn't get up to much but an easy day and first tentative steps on the (different) roads were the way forward. Had a very nice bottle of red wine from the Thirsty Owl Winery (isn't that a great name for a vineyard!) and took it easy in the evening. Also had a bowl of curried soup and rice at lunchtime - very good and set us up for the day.

Thursday we took ourselves to Robert H Treman State Park, a little ways from Ithaca. Leafy and green and very popular with local folk, if the number of people walking and using the swimming hole was anything to go by (wish I'd brought my cossie now!) Hiked near enough all the way up to the top of the park, and just about killed our legs with it, but it was worth it for the views, and the watermelon pieces when we got to the bottom! DH helped his brother build a new PC in the evening and the wine we glugged nearly did for me!

Yesterday we went out and did more waterfalls - Buttermilk Falls State Park and Taughannock Falls State Park. Both very impressive and, as seems to be a recurring theme, in green and lush surroundings. Walked on a dry lakebed on the latter which was fun and took many photos at both. No wine last night, but still nodded off on the couch and had great difficulty going to sleep afterwards!

Today we had a leisurely start and went down the street and across the road to Ithaca Farmers' Market - wow. Lots of locally grown veggies, fruit and flowers, stock producers with fresh meat of varying sorts, craft stalls from soap to t-shirts, and food stalls. Oh boy! The Cambodian food was recommended to us by DH's bro and how! Ahmock chicken - spicy with bamboo shoots, rice, onion, chilis, potato and a whole lot of other stuff - nom nom nom! Combine that with a pomegranate and cranberry juice and it's the breakfast of champions (or of very happy people, at least!!) This afternoon, off on a tour of the wineries locally, of which there are many. Of note? Thirsty Owl, and Lucas Winery - good wine, unpretentious and drinkable. Which may explain why we came back, between the four of us, with a few bottles. Homemade pizza for tea, with a snifter or two? Sounds a damn fine idea to me, so I'll close here for now. More to follow...:)

Leaving on a jet plane...

Keeping it short and sweet because I have to get up very early tomorrow morning. Painfully early, after several late nights in a row this past week, but it will all be worth it.

Most excellent weekend with the Runrig concert at Scone Palace yesterday (very jolly company, including a first-time concertgoer but long time fan of the band who was utterly ecstatic even before the music started! Yay Roby! :D) and now this finds me and DH sitting in the hotel lounge the night before we head to NYS - New York State that is. Just had what feels like the world's most expensive sandwich but heck, it's our holiday...them's the breaks.

More soon, but now it's time for zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'm going to hate that alarm clock when it goes off!

"Do you follow my drift?" "In technicolor, sir."

Hello...:) More catching up here..a film review will follow shortly but by way of an opener, today is 1st wedding anniversary for hubs and me...:D With some of the things we've had to cope with in the past year, this isn't how either of us would've envisaged spending our first 12 months as man and wife, but we're happy bunnies otherwise, and probably stronger together as a result of the difficult stuff. 'Nuff said...and on to the review...(NB - this was originally written back in May but for a whole bunch of reasons it's taken me till now to finish it and get it uploaded.)

LA Confidential (1997)takes James Ellroy's sprawling tale of cops, corruption and the seamy side of sunny Los Angeles and gives us an elegant thriller, often brutal, frequently witty and packed with fantastic performances. One of my favourite films of all time, for a whole raft of reasons, and (for anyone who knows me :D) not just for Russell Crowe's blistering turn as Wendell 'Bud' White.

Although I've got it on DVD (and VHS), when it turns up on the TV I like to try and watch some if not all of it, for old times' sake and because it's one of those films that stands up to repeated viewings - there's enough subtlety to offer up something different every time you see it.

Yet again LA Confidential never fails to suck me in: the story, the keenly depicted atmosphere of 50's LA, none of the characters quite conforming to the moulds they've come from, and the key officers - White (Crowe), Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) trying to get to the truth, with varying degrees of success and personal cost. The glamour of Hollywood is undercut by the grimy reality - tabloid magazines create scandal from thin air, apparently respectable businessmen sell smut and skin, and the cops are all compromised; some willingly, others by circumstance.

It is a beautiful film to watch - director Curtis Hanson and his team have really gone to town to ensure the look and feel of the City of Angels in a time of both prosperity and transition is near-perfect (although IMDB will keep you right about a few goofs here and there!) It's also an intelligent piece of cinema; the story unfurls without fuss, but keeps you gripped to the conclusion - there's no excess fat of action sequences, just enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and, as the finale approaches, hurl you headlong towards it like a rollercoaster passenger who's just twigged the brakes are broken.

Somewhere a while back I read that LA Confidential the novel was considered a difficult prospect to turn into a film and, having read the book AFTER I saw the big-screen version, I can only agree. Ellroy's known for his heavy-duty, intertwined plotting, and LAC the book is no exception. The film covers some dark material, but (without spoilerizing things) the novel goes considerably further on that front, so it's understandable why some of the plot strands there didn't reach the movie.

It's understandable why Kim Basinger won the Oscar for her performance as Lynn Bracken, the Veronica Lake lookalike - a character with wit, vulnerability and humanity in spades - and I would never begrudge her that accolade. That one award for acting in LAC perhaps doesn't quite paint the whole picture of the film though - the performances are consistently excellent across the board, and it undoubtedly played its part in bringing Pearce and Crowe to wider mainstream attention. On that front, if you've been watching The Mentalist on TV, you won't have failed to notice Simon Baker as lead character Patrick Jane. By way of a mini Six Degrees of Separation, under the name Simon Baker Denny, he has a small but important role in LAC...but again, to stay spoiler-free here, you'll need to see the film.

Overall, 10 out of 10 for LAC - definitely one of my top 10 films of all time.