Saturday - 2008-0419-2330 - Rain - Cold and Alone; James Dean on New York City Street; Lawn Events; Front Door; Front Door and Locks; "Capote"; Capital Punishment; "Torchwood"

Rain - Cold and Alone Larger Image

James Dean on New York Street Larger Image

A photo by Robert Welton (rweltonmn) of Reflections of Lake Superior.

Cloudy skies hover above a dark lighthouse at the end of a concrete pier. A pool of water reflects a metal fence across the entrance. Street lights along the pier offer a dim streak of illumination in the sheen of the pavement. A solitary sea gull perches on a dark street light.

Cold and alone and solitary it may be, but its stark beauty beckons to artistic eye.

Again, I'm surprised at the number of James Dean images that I've stored away without really looking at them. This one is something of a surprise for it shows a disheveled Dean shambling indifferently along an unknown street. One of the few images I've seen in which his hair is tousled

Yes, yes, I know, I'm fascinated by him. Everything you know hints at something you don't know. Evidence supports that he was gay but indulged in the necessary public hetrosexuality of the era. But there are also rumors that he was into very "heavy traffic." To the point that the coroner make some comments about the scars and burns on the body.

The front yard is mowed. And parts of it raked. The leaf blower turned out to be very helpful, and the output was much stronger than I anticipated.

The front metal door has received two coats of high-gloss terra-cotta-tinted paint. One of the most difficult sections is the trim of the oval leaded-glass window.If I do it one way I get paint on the glass. If I do it another way, I don't get paint on the trim.

In painting the inside, I realized this evening, I didn't use a primer. So I'm not sure what impact that will have.

It was impossible to paint without splashing paint on the locks. It has a double-barreled deadbolt at the top and a key-in-the-knob lock at the bottom. I thought I'd could remove the locks, paint the covered section very carefully and clean up the locks.

When I looked at the deadbolt, I could not find a way to remove it. I looked and looked to no avail. I then got a flashlight and discovered two very small metal pegs that cover two retaining bolts. The pegs are superbly camouflaged, and even once you find them, they proved very difficult to remove.

I finally got the deadbolt off, but then I realized I didn't know how to reinstall it. Plus I scratched both the inside and outside surface. Today, at Lowe's I bought a duplicate lock. Fie on whoever printed the directions. It was only after about two hours that I realized that the only way for the assembly to click is for the deadbolt to be in the engaged position. By this point, I'd screwed up the paint of the door. So I'll have to revisit the lock and repaint the door. Shit!

Tiger, Tiger managed to sneak out about three times. Once I saw a cat on the carport and didn't realize it was him. Camille, made a mad dash out the carport door, and for a few minutes I didn't think I could catch her. Curiously enough, with her black, tan and white markings, she looked like she had been rolling in the paint.

By accident, I saw the last fifteen minutes of "Capote" this morning. I was riveted. I immediately forgot that I was watching an actor. Hoffman's portrayal of Capote was chilling. In the process of doing the book, it is obvious he had fallen in love with one of the perpetrators - Perry Smith. Capote discovered many similarities in their backgrounds. In one section of the movie, he says, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front."

Truman attends the execution by hanging. The camera shows the fall of Perry and immediately switched to Capote, who flinches at the sound of the release of the trap door. He almost seems to implode. From what I've read, the experience was so traumatic for Truman that he really never recovered from it.

The idea of capital punishment terrifies me. How can taking the life of one person compensate for the death of another? Violent acts have to be the product of a crippled psyche; the alternative is far scarier, for it indicates that the "normal" person is capable of murder.

There is a moral distinction between the deranged act of an individual and the sanctioned manifestation of the state. The idea of a public execution is a form of barbarism that debases humanity.

Tonight was the season finale of "Torchwood." I spent the last ten minutes in tears. I have never come across a tv series that so consistently attacks my emotions. It's a series that treats death as the termination of the existence of a person. A person that was loved and respected. Yet, there is always a sense of spiritual continuity.

(In Saturday - 2008-0419-2330 / Out - 2008-0420-0130) This entry was written in a single setting.

Pax! Erin go braugh! Je accuse...