My mother in her dementia has now completely lost her history and, by definition, mine as well (the Baby Years at least) and my journey's back to Canada get shorter and shorter. Such quests started out in 2007 (the year I retired to Thailand) being 5 months at a time but slowly they become less ... now, in 2017 it's down to 6 weeks. Next year I'm considering perhaps just two or three weeks.
But time moves on as does the entertainment quotient, those things which interest me most here come up on the big screen live, rather than the next day, or week, which is pretty much obligatory in Thailand ... especially when trusting in True Visions but then ending up in a mild disappointment.
This week was particularly special:
(1) Sergio's magical flat stick: Spain #1
Sergio Garcia has been in the Top 10 or 15 of the PGA Tour (and as well in the European Tour) for what seems like forever. I fully remember him hitting a golf shot at the PGA which went around the massive tree he was very closely stymied against and finally ended up well on the green. An impossible shot really and as he followed it out he jumped up with boy-like enthusiasm looking for it's eventual spot on the green. He lost that day. Yet I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Garcia played his entire professional life chasing after Tiger Woods, but only rarely winning. Woods bowed out around 2010 emotionally and physically and Garcia might well have caught the lucky bus . . . but a Major alluded him even then. Until this last Sunday.
He cried like a fresh baby, and rightly so: not only was it his first Major (some call The Masters the major-of-majors), it happened on the birthday of his late mentor/hero, Seve Ballesteros.
I watched the whole four days and he played all four with quiet courage (finally! Sergio had a grand mal fire in the gut, but not this time) and one hell of a putter.
He beat Justin Rose (a formidable golfer on any day) on the first hole of sudden-death tie . . . the two were always played together in the four-somes of the Ryder Cup, and are great friends. And It shows.
(2) Neymar's magic could not hold: Spain #2
But he's still wildly hot ... a beautiful man on a beautiful club playing a beautiful game.
But hotness aside, Barcelona could not handle Juventus this day (just hours ago here in BC).
Barcelona Football Club is one of the great clubs of Europe for the last five years or so, and Spain as a whole is arguably the greatest power in European football (which means the world), holding great clubs such as Real Madrid, Athletico Madrid, Villarreal. But Barcelona is hands above most of the time, mainly because of their indomitable strikers Neymar, Messi, and Suarez, a three-some unstoppable on many occasions.
Barca played Juventus this week, an Italian team (Turin) which has often been called the greatest club in football history ... but 20+ years ago. I remembered that name as a kid.
So I shivered with excitement over a beer at my old stomping ground sleazoid sports bar when I realized I was about to watch, live, Juventus against Barcelona. I can't recall ever having had this grand a day ... so I settled in.
Not to be disappointed ~ I had already assumed, foolishly, that Barca would win ~ I was not. The Italian Mob won 3-0. Two of the three Juventus goals were sublime ... the second strike (Dybala) passed through bodies and legs and Hail Marys then slammed into the net at cannonball speed, the goalie as helpless as the Pope when confronted by Michelangelo's finished ceiling.
The last 20 minutes saw Barcelona pull out all the stops ... even though it was 3-0 by that time. Neymar tried everything in the book to, at the very least, not go down with a '0' in the bag. As Barca tried heartily, Juventus defended their right to win with great honour (not a lot of nasty fouls in this game) and walked away from the Italian field to a classic Italian pandemonium.
There is nothing worse than a boring amateurish football game . . . but hardly anything better than one conducted with the greatest of finesse.
And this was the latter in spades. One of the greatest football matches I've ever seen.
And Neymar is still hot.
(3) 'Moonlight' Redux: one exquisite film (Black lives ... )
This marvelous film got a bit of short shrift in a previous post a few weeks back.
I had watched it some months before The Oscars, but since then had gone back to the trough a number of times ... and I rarely watch a movie twice. I think the first time I saw it I was watching too 'hard' ... trying to decipher The Street americana, but in doing so passing by lots of never-maudlin nuance which makes this movie inspiringly important.
'Moonlight' gets you in the gut, turns you inside out, flips you over, blasts you with sadness, then joy, then quiet, then explosion, then speechless sublimity. The pace might distract you on first watch, but will have you sitting-no-figit on a second go-around. Slow languid takes, at least one of them especially passes for the long slow tracking of a lion looking for a kill. That lion does not know what's coming.
The music background is perfectly haunting and you might find yourself humming the wordless background major set piece which comes out of nowhere at the oddest of times, yet never feeling 'wrong'.
'little' ... 'Black' ... 'Chiron': it's terribly difficult to not love each one. And it's terribly easy to fall in love with this movie. Come back to it from different angles, then come back again: you'll discover more and more.
The last 20 minutes of 'Moonlight' is one of the most sublime, erotic, and gentle scenes I've ever seen in my life.
You can catch 'Moonlight' on Manga Films. Their version uses english subtitles as a help tool ... the street talk is not particularly easy to catch right away. https://myreadingmanga.info/movie-moonlight-2016
