The Aerie
The eggs have been dyed. The kids are in bed. Now we're just waiting
for the Bunny.
Today was great, bright, warm, sunny. Earth Day. At 4:30 I was
riding my bike along West River Road when I saw a piece of paper stuck
to a boulder about 34th Ave. I rode up to see why this paper was
stuck to the boulder: it read "Earth Day Post-Cleanup Celebration,
3:00!"
Spent the day at a bunch of chores: laundry, car repairs, laundry,
home repairs, laundry and, oh yes, laundry. Tomorrow will of course
be eaten alive by Easter.
Riding the bike was pleasant. I remember when I was a teenager in St.
Francis, riding my bike ten miles each way to school. It would be
nice to be in shape like that again!
I saw an interesting movie this afternoon. Well, a piece of it. I
have no idea what it was, except that it was one of those oriental
martial-arts films, badly dubbed into English.
The interesting scene I happened to catch was a battle in which two
people, a man and a woman, were fighting to see who was the superior
warrior in the midst of the public square of their home town, which
was filled with local residents. The twist to the battle was that the
loser would be the first person to touch the ground, for the battle
took place upon the heads and shoulders of those present.
Now, this has been done before and since -- I've seen "battle atop the
mosh-pit" on Xena and elsewhere. But the way the battle evolved was
very interesting. As the villagers scattered to avoid being walked
on, the battle between the two champions hinged upon how many of the
people in the crowd were willing to participate as the platforms upon
which their friends could depend to keep them elevated. These loyal
friends not only had to put up with their warriors standing on their
heads and shoulders, but they engaged the (literal) supporters of the
other warrior while so doing. In the end, the fellows on the ground
took much more abuse than the two on top, even throwing themselves
beneath their falling combatants in order to prevent their hitting the
ground.
I was fascinated by what these scenes said about the nature of
friendship and loyalty, the way in which we support each other, and
even on the way in which wars are waged. I can't believe the
filmmaker was not aware of this, and I found it almost touching that
he or she would embed such a profound contemplation on friendship in
the midst of a profoundly silly action-movie.
But no more big insights tonight, the Easter Bunny is waiting for me
to get to sleep. Night!