Today we saw a film called Cupcakes, a frothy romp with 6 Israelis who sing a song to their friend and neighbor to cheer her up, then decide to take their simple, spontaneous song all the way to the Euro Song contest in Paris. They have thrills, chills and spills along the way, reach Paris, and place in the contest.
Along the way the themes seem to be to be true to who you really are, the value of friendship, and to go for what you believe in, don't let yourself be tainted by other folks' impressions of what you should be.
One of the singers is gay, and very amusing, he sings in the contest in a tux jacket and white shirt, complemented by a pink tu tu and white sneakers. They place, I won't spoil the results, but if you get a chance and it ever hits the main screen, you should see it for a feel good, fun romp, involving friends taking risks and doing what they enjoy, but being true to their own personalities and values.
Great flick indeed. We both loved it, and the sound track is great too, some wonderful tracks of music.
Yesterday, on the other hand, was a much more serious and somber film, a documentary called the Venice Syndrome, and dealt with the fact that Venice is pretty well emptying out of all its young,
local people, leaving only a few thousand elderly folks living there. The financial institutions and businesses have mostly departed, leaving kind of a Disneyesque shell of what it used to be. The fresh food market is even thinking of leaving the area, most of the younger people have left long ago to go and seek their living elsewhere. You see repeated scenes of folks moving out and leaving their houses.
One of the commentators was an elderly female writer, and another main one was a male architect, the architect spilled the beans that Venice has no sewer system at all, everything just empties out into the canals. He said that the rents are super exorbitant, the buildings such as they are, are not being maintained, or very poorly maintained, and the people that own them are doing very little to no maintenance on them, in the climate and atmosphere that is very destructive by its nature. The rents that are charged are in the ridiculous range, for apparently very sub standard accommodation. The lack of quality maintenance that you see is pretty shocking, indeed.
Another thing is the huge cruise ships that come in and disgorge hordes of tourists, who aren't the empathic type of tourist looking for a quality experience, but the more superficial type of tourist who isn't aware that the shops are selling poor quality merchandise, which doesn't really reflect the older true values that were Venice of the past. It was very impressive, but quite dark in tone and color too.
Here at our park things are picking up as folks arrive back from their Christmas trips home, while others are just arriving for their season in the desert southlands. We have both a Board of Directors meeting this month, combined with a 30th anniversary of our park dinner and dance, and then the following weekend on Saturday we have a huge Rummage sale that pretty well involves most of the park members.
We collect "good used 'junque'" all through the year, and then sell it in one massive burst of energy on a Saturday in late January, when the rest of the neighborhood is pretty well doing the same thing.
For the rummage sale there is a fury of home baking that happens in order to sell at the sale, some folks love to sell wares in the same department (area) as last year, in all it brings out the fun spirited in most of us, but is one helluva big sweat to put on.
At the rummage sale and even for the volunteers doing setup the day before we have snacks and burgers available, so you can imagine the logistics of getting it all planned, set up, and done the day of the sale. It's January 25th this year, so if you're in the area, do drop in.
Starts at 7:30 AM and goes til we have the sales activity drop off significantly, at which time the rest of the goodies are normally given to charity. Much ado indeed, but a great annual fundraiser for our park.
That's it for today, and thanks for visiting.
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