Half Blood Prince

I saw the first Harry Potter movie, back near the beginning of time, and had not gone there again. Now, one of my grand daughters got me to take her to see the “Half-Blood Prince”, a movie she had seen before, and I was anxious to catch up where I left off.

It was fun. But you got to go with the flow. You have to play YOUR part in the movie, too. You have to know the background, just like a person who is “street smart”, you have to be “Potter smart”. Otherwise the writing is a drag. And I mean it - it just drags the viewer from one point of action on down the road to the next point. The acting is a form of vocal miming and the actors seem to be caricatures of the characters they supposedly represent. If there is any development of character in the movie - well - it looks like Poor ole Harry is becoming a case of arrested development. He NEEDS to move on. I clearly missed the magical power of actors really acting since these guys basically just struck statuesque poses to communicate a vague understanding that certain concepts were beginning to emerge and develop in their brains. A little like watching a ballet in 1/640 time. They made Jack Benny look like the Keystone Cops. Then - of course, there were the jet-motorcycle-witches broom-hockey games in the sky. Wow.

In my opinion, the photography is awful. The movie is dark and the photography is dark, and it takes refuge in that fact. To be fair, there are several amazing vistas shown, but the movie concentrates on strange artifacts which apparently represent devices that these semi-mystic-savages use for unexplained purposes. There are a lot of astonishing visual effects that are clearly the highlight of the show. Instead of “music”, the movie had “sound” which varied in intensity and sometimes made the walls of the theater vibrate. It tried to tell you when to pay attention and when you didn’t really have to. And, of course just when you really don't have to pay attention, something big goes off. The lighting was flirty and interesting. But any pretense at storytelling has long ago been abandoned in lieu of pretending to tell a story that can never become a story because it must not ever end. Because then, the money ends, and it generates a LOT of that!

Overall it was like watching an old baseball player, still on his happy pills, still hitting home runs because he gets hit higher than the balls will ever go - never mind that he can’t play the game any more, people still come to cheer because he might hit another one out.

And - by the way - and this bothered me a little bit in the first movie - where are the computers?

Folkmoot 2009 - International Day

Folkmoot! Interntional Day! What more needs to be said? What more CAN be said? If you haven't been there you have a gift of great value awaiting you. You will have to wait another year to open it though because it is packing its charms today, and the people who have come to Waynesville from the corners of the earth prepare to return to their respective corners.

Folkmoot is a two-week long international celebration of food, costume, traditions, music and dance. Participants come from various counties and perform in the mountains of WNC. The last Saturday is designated International Day and the main street of Waynesville is turned into a pedestrian mall with performances all day long on both ends of the street. In between performances, visitors stroll through kiosks and the shops of Waynesville, eating, shopping and meeting the international performers who are also walking the street as anxious to meet Americans as we are to meet and talk with them. It is one of the great happenings of the year in this part of the world. In 2009, the participants have come from Greece, Israel, Mexico, Romania, Togo, Serbia, Spain and the Netherlands.

The Streets of Waynesville

Easy to overlook in the glare of nearby Asheville, Waynesville has its own charm and its own talents. There are writers here and photographers also, and those other people who conjure magik out of paintbrushes onto canvas, paper and whatnots. The old mountain crafts are alive and well in Waynesville and available for purchase on Folkmoot's International Day. This is the day to be here and it is the place to buy all those wonderful Christmas and birthday gifts that you will proudly present at appropriate times later in the year.

Not all the great artists of Waynesville work with brush, camera or pencil, some of them make their art in the presentation of their shops. Here's one with the loveliest accommodation for passers-by that I have ever seen. And I use that term in the broadest sense of its metaphysical implications. You CAN'T walk by here without sitting down - it's right on the sidewalk, and you feel like you've finally come home when you do!

Other places in Waynesville prepare their art on plates that they present before you as you clasp your hands in joy and raise your eyebrows high over your pursed lips. On International Day in Waynesville, there is SO much to choose from that NObody can do it right. There are vendors beyond comprehension who are providing ethnic food from many kiosks. I always intend to eat a lot of food there, but I usually bomb out in Nick and Nate's where I gravitate to their pizza buffet and a GREAT glass of Alleycat Ale. If you are lucky, you may have to wait for a table. If that happens, go down toward the buffet line, on the right, and you will see ALL of the roasted, salted peanuts ever cooked in the entire world. The first one or two may not taste very good, but if you go beyond that, the waiters may have to drag you away to your table, kicking and screaming when it comes ready. (That has happened to me several times,)

And there is permanent art here too. Sly foxes watch as you walk past them on the sidewalks. There is a great alligator made out of - nuts and bolts. There are whimsical things that seem to float in some eternal breeze, and of course, who could miss these guys?

Faces of Folkmoot

The real story is in the faces of people. This is where the real stories are told. It's another language. Not easy to learn. Not if you are over about twelve years of age, so you may have to regress a bit. People will tell you a lot of made-up stories, but it is their faces that tell the real story. Here is a brief look at some really interesting stories that cry out for the great artists and writers to come before them and interpret what they are desperately trying to tell us.

And one more thing. Some of us are bashful, and wilt before beautiful women from faraway places, and would never know how to photograph the prettiest faces in the world. How can you learn how to make fabulous photographs like these on this page? EASY. Come to Waynesville next year and see some of the greatest sights on the planet!

Any men? Yeah, there are some men around during the presentations and I make some of their pictures too, but I really don't know very much about them.



(Remember - all these pictures will enlarge if clicked on.)