Evanston: the trouble with cities; linked pairs
Evanston: the trouble with cities; linked pairs
‘The trouble with cities’ is the title of the above photograph, which happens to be the corner of Chicago Avenue and South Boulevard, a block from our condo, but could have been taken ten thousand different places. It just happened to strike me particularly there the other day when I was walking back from the store. The problem is that cities are cluttered with banal ugliness. We become mostly oblivious to it. The elevated building on the left is the South Boulevard CTA station. Carol drives under it each day to and from work.
I look for beauty, and it can be found in cities: but as isolated oases and often inside. Spanish homes turn their back to the world with blank exterior walls broken by a single door. They turn inward to a courtyard they can control. As I have said elsewhere, cities look best through a veil: snow; fog; night; distance. To photograph in a city you must be selective and crop. I like looking out our south windows at the nearby cemetery because of its openness and lack of clutter. But between me and the cemetery are an ugly roof; a small parking lot; telephone poles and wires; cars; and various signs.
That is one of the joys of being at sea: there is nothing ugly there and the horizon is endless.
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Perhaps you have seen one of those old clocks shaped like a house with two figures on a disk at the base so that when one comes out, the other goes in.
There seem to be pairs of people like that. I have just come across one set, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone in a book, THE LION AND THE UNICORN; and another implied by a movie, GONE, BABY, GONE.
Being leaders of opposing political parties and the dominant figures in the last half of Nineteenth Century British politics, of course Disraeli and Gladstone were linked. When one was Prime Minister, the other wasn’t. But more than position, their very health, physical and mental, waxed and waned in opposing concert.
They were very different men. Disraeli, charming and witty, almost always comes off better in any comparison; but in retrospect, self-righteous Gladstone, who was given to walking the streets of London late at night performing ‘rescue’ work among prostitutes, often held what in retrospect history considers the sounder view on many issues.
The other pair are Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Boston boys who made good young with GOOD WILL, HUNTING, following which Affleck’s career seemed to rise for a while, while Damon’s flagged; until at some point a few years ago, after some of his movies did not do well commercially, Affleck declined, while Damon with the Bourne movies and his part in THE DEPARTED soared.
GONE, BABY, GONE is Affleck’s first film as a director. His brother, Casey, stars in it; along with Amy Ryan, who has an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. Casey also has an Oscar nomination, but for a different movie I have not yet seen. He should have been nominated for this one as well
Set in Boston, about the investigation of a missing child, this is a tough-minded movie, without a Hollywood happy ending. In fact the final shot is devastatingly silent.
Ben Affleck is a very impressive director.
Some have said that GONE, BABY, GONE is one of the best movies of the year. I agree.
Monday, February 18, 2008