Jims of Wyzdom for August 24, 2018
Here we are again…the Dog Days of Summer. I always feel that the last part of August is the time of the Dog Days…but how did our canine friends get put in this position? Don’t know. Don’t care. What I do care about is that the Dog Days signal a change of season from humid to dry, hot to just warm with a few cool days thrown in. And then—surprise—we might get Indian Summer in October. Consult your Farmer’s Almanac for details.
Having nothing else to look t at the local cinema, we gave in and went to see the well-reviewed 6th iteration of Mission Impossible. We used to love that show when it was on TV and enjoyed even the most preposterous of clever tricks the team would cook up to get the bad guys an leave them all flummoxed in a bad place of their own invention. The Times reviewer said this one might be the best so far, even though poor Tom Cruise would again be runningrunningrunnnniiing and there would be an impossible car chase around Paris. That was the boring part for Bon and I. We’re just plain bored with such stuff and saddened that the movie makers can’t come up with something more creative. Oh, well. What we really want to see is Spike Lee’s new “joint,” BlacKKKlansman. Stay tuned.
For all you Film Forum-eers, today we’ll be seeing Memphis, and then we will take next week off so that you can get outa town for 4 whole days over the Labor Day weekend. We’ll conclude our series on Sept. 7 with Chicago. I am going to ask you to do something on that last day. I’d like you to give me the title of ONE musical you’d love to see next summer and the title of ONE film, not musical, any genre, that you’d like to see on a future series. You’ll note those titles on your class evaluation, so start thinking about titles…
What remains to me of strength becomes more precious for what is lost. I have lost one ear, but was never so alive to sweet sounds as now. My sight is so far impaired that the brightness in which nature was revealed to me in my youth is dimmed, but I never looked on nature with such pure joy as now. My limbs soon tire, but I never felt it such a privilege to move about in the open air, under the sky in sight of the infantry of creation, as at this moment. I almost think that my simple food, eaten by rule, was never relished so well. I am grateful, then, for my earthly tabernacle, though it does creak and shake not a little. [Clergyman—and co-founder of Transcendentalism—William Ellery Channing]
I once wrote a major grad school paper on the history of the Transcendentalists who got that title because of their beliefs in metaphysics, overcoming things through the spiritual power of the mind. That was the only paper I ever handed in that I did not have a copy for files…but I have always loved the idea of transcending things. Channing’s quote gives all us seniors food for thought in how many ways we can transcend the ills of age. Aren’t we fortunate that we are all Wisdom Keepers that do not shrink from climbing over obstacles that may start in mind, but often intrude into our world. USE your wisdom gifts to keep your body parts active and alive!
We’re off to Lily Dale on Monday, so we wish you a perfect Labor Day experience…Just Jim