In which it turns out Joseph Stalin had decent taste in movies!

Captain's log: January 25
Last movie watched: Across the Universe (verdict: rather awesome)
Song currently in head: Run Around by Blues Traveller. Specifically the "Once upon a midnight dreary" part.

So lately I’ve been attempting to watch as many of the Best Picture Oscar winners as I can. I’ve got, let’s see...44 of 80 (yay, halfway!) which is nothing to be sneezed at (bless you!). And so I shall be educating you all on my favourite offerings from the various decades. And no, I haven’t seen any from the 1920s. And yes, the later decades are much more respectable, hit-wise, but I’m not made of money, and there’s no way I’m sitting through Olivier’s Hamlet. I’ve seen fifteen slooooow minutes of it, and I think that’s satisfactory (don’t worry, I’m not counting it as one of the 44).
Anyway. We begin with the 1930s. When films were finding their stride, colour was infiltrating the talkies (hell, they’d only just started talking) and apparently a lot of new boundaries were being broken. Of these I have seen two Best Picture winners, although one of those was Gone With The Wind, and so I think that’s worth 2 of itself. Longest film I’ve ever seen, or at the very least it felt as much, and though I was only eight when I saw it I’m fairly certain I got the gist, so no need to sit through that 222 minutes again.
Here goes:

A very disagreeable southern woman makes life difficult for a lot of people. At the end Clark Gable swears (GASP!).

Ok, yes, it’s probably more involved, and yes, I should probably treat it with more respect, considering how immensely popular it seems to be. And give it its due. It gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar, for crying out loud (although her character, “Mammy”, has garnered some criticism for implying that all slaves were basically happy. Whee! Racism!). It also has a legacy of being very difficult to get off the ground – it went through several directors and scriptwriters, not to mention numerous casting possibilities. Its most famous line has its own Wikipedia page. (No kidding! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankly,_my_dear,_I_don%27t_give_a_damn) Apparently a lot of decision making went into the use of the word “damn”, and whether it was appropriate. It was finally decided that since it was quoting the novel, it was ok. We’ve certainly come a long way.

Speaking personally my favourite summation comes from the Umbilical Brothers (in under 2 minutes, including intermission), and if anyone knows where I can download this skit, please notify me at once.

Onto the other film from the 1930s – it’s one of my very favourite films ever – 1934’s It Happened One Night, starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable (hello again!). Basically it’s about a spoiled heiress who goes on the run to escape an arranged marriage, and the newspaper reporter who tags along with her, looking for a story. Sounds almost formulaic now, but remember this was made in the 1930s. This created the formula, people! It’s witty and sweet and, according to the Library of Congress, “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. Those sentimental bastards.

It was the first of only three films to win all the “Big Five” awards at the Oscars – these being the Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Writing awards. The most famous bit of trivia is that during the “Walls of Jericho” scene (you don’t know it? Well watch it, people!...ok, it basically involved two single people of the opposite sex sharing a room (GASP) and constructing a partition out of a blanket. Look, I told you to watch it...) Clark Gable did not (as was the fashion) wear a vest under his shirt, since it was too complicated to do his lines while removing it. As a result, they say, undershirt sales plummeted, and manufacturers tried to sue.

Oh, and look! It’s one of Joseph Stalin’s favourite films! How could it not be awesome!?

While we're at it I should probably talk about the Oscars themselves. So we'll start with the awards that tend to get sandwiched between the more well known ones. These are the awards with the most entertaining titles.

Animated Short (pretty entertaining category, especially since Pixar shows up here quite a bit), Documentary Short (must be incredibly difficult to tell a decent story in a short time), Live Action Short and Documentary Feature (the most famous of which, really, is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth). I'm notoriously bad at getting around to seeing these, although I have seen Animated Short nominee Presto. I give it two animated thumbs up. This year's favourite title is La Maison en Petits Cubes, for Animated Short film. I'm assuming it's French for "The House of the Little Cubes".

Brilliant.

"You show me a good piggy-backer and I'll show you a real human. Now you take Abraham Lincoln for instance. A natural born piggy-backer."
--- Clark Gable - It Happened One Night ---

In which the Oscar Nominations are out!!!

They’re off!

Welcome to Omails 2009! The S.S.Oscar has been launched by the venerable Forest Whittaker, and Hugh Jackman is at the helm. I’m anticipating dance numbers. Dance! I still have a few to see (Revolutionary Road, Doubt, Milk, The Reader), so there’s going to be a lot to do between now and February 22 (or the 23rd here). I apologise, also, in advance, for this post, which is being written with a headache and a general tiredness, and so may show signs of both. But you can find all the 2009 nominations on http://www.imdb.com/. My reactions are as follows:

In which we are pleased:
That Robert Downey Jr has a nomination for Tropic Thunder. The entertainment value alone is going to be worth it. Also that Tom Cruise is not nominated for the same. He needs no encouragement.
That Taraji P. Henson is up for Benjamin Button.
That Thomas Newman is nominated for original score and song for Wall*E. Whee! Although I think he’s done better, I love seeing him up there.
That Heath Ledger is nominated. This is really what the Oscars are going to be about this year.
That Slumdog Millionaire has so many nominations. I’d be quite satisfied with that film winning Best Pic.
That Frank Langella is nominated for Frost/Nixon. As of this moment my favourite of the Best Actor nominees. Even though I’ve only seen two of them.

In which we are less than pleased:
Philip Seymour Hoffman. As usual.
That Kristen Scott Thomas and Sally Hawkins are nowhere to be seen.
Complete absence of original songs from the Chronicles of Narnia. Stupid 3-song rule.
That there are no acting nominations for Slumdog Millionaire.

So mostly it’s pleasing, but not necessarily incredibly exciting. Fewer “Whee!”s this year. This year’s Omails have a plan (a PLAN!) and for the first time will be displayed in blog form (this may end disastrously). The website is as follows: http://www.reasons-passing-understanding.blogspot.com/

I’ll be trying to update every couple of days, planning around my moving house (again, disaster may be imminent). So I wish you a very happy new President of the United States, and a merry Oscar race 2009.

Tootles!

Little bits and pieces

So once all the more massive tenants have been dealt with, there are a number of itty bitty fellow creatures who need some care. They're referred to as "babies", and are just that. Animals that are too young or too sick to be in the wild, and need to be cared for on a regular basis. Let's take a look...

There's Grommet, the Bushbaby, who during the day resembles nothing so much as a pile of blankets in his little cage, but as the sun goes down a red-brown hand will reach out from under the blanket and stretch its little fingers wide as it wakes up. Out next are the curious nose and huge eyes, and at last, a bushy tail. He likes to grab hold of things - like your finger - and, when he's let out of the cage and into the cabin in the evening, to climb all over the drapes, furniture, and anyone else who happens to be in the way. He's gorgeous, and mostly friendly, this last hampered by a slight tendency to pee on people. Grommet will spend hours in your room grabbing hold of any small object and examining it in detail - and if you play with him you get a great visual of him on his hind legs, arms raised, stomping childishly towards you like a big bear - raaaarrrr!

They're not always cuddly, though. Also running around the cabins was Spike, a baby dassie who was as nimble as anything, despite resembling nothing so much as an angry guinea pig. Out in the cages, Captain, a wahlberg's eagle, gets fed a handful of cut-up chicks (oh believe me, I know) on the glove at the end of the day. He's definitely powerful, so having him clutched on your arm while his beak's about 20cm away from your eyes is kind of unnerving, but he's also beautiful to be so close to. Just not when he's spraying you with chick innards.

Behind Captain's cage are the porcupines, once apparently the size of, well, Spike, they're about as big as terriers now. Gorgeous, though, and when you give them a bit of corn they'll twitter their thanks. Their tongues are sandpaper-rough, and if you come up behind them while they're eating, they'll suddenly poof out their back ends into this big old ball of spikes, and shuffle around so that they've always got it pointed at you. Whee!

Also in that cage is Olly, the tiny wee scops owl. So while you're waiting for the porcu's to finish their meal, you can sit and feed Olly, by holding up a scrap of food and calling "Ollyollyolly!" Over he flies to perch on your hand while he takes the food and flies off somewhere to eat it.

But my favourite of the "babies", apart from the porcupines, are a couple of animals not entirely fascinating, but just about as cute as can be. To wit: bunnies and squirrels! The baby bunnies are so tame they're allowed to run around in my bedroomin the evening, chewing on my dirty laundry and leaving their...er...leavings all over the place. But if I call them, they'll come hopping out from under the bed or wherever they may be, to be cuddled. Kiwi is aptly named - colouring is just like the kiwi skin, and he's very adventurous in climbing all over me to reach other parts of the room. His little ears are quite often lifted, and he has such a huge appetite at meal times that it's all I can do to keep him away from the milk so I can feed his sister, Skye. Skye is white with red eyes, and a little quieter than Kiwi. She will, however, often climb up my chest to nose around my face, giving me little rabbit kisses. I love them to pieces, and when I'm writing in my notebook they'll come crawling all over it to see what's going on: what's more adorable than us?

The squirrels are just as adorable. Tiny wee creatures, only just gaining control of their bodies, but quite able at this point to crawl over a human being who is lucky enough to help out with their feeding. They get syringes full of milk too, and they grab it with their front paws as though holding a long glass, sucking down the milk with little squeaks and grunts. Once they're done they'll collapse, bellies swollen, into your palm, sleeve or hood for a sleep. Best thing in the world? A sleepy, just-fed squirrel having his tummy rubbed: limbs spread, rolled onto the back, and just enjoying the heck out of it.

Bringing out the big guns...

I wanted to see the lions.

I'd heard them roaring the first night I arrived...echoing yawns around the park that made it sound like they were right outside my window. And the big cats were the animals I was most intrigued by. Just had to find the buggers.

Outside the cottage where I sleep are, immediately, two of the smaller big cats: Shadow and Shade, the hyenas, next to them Xinandi, the female cheetah, and next over Jolly and Juba, the male cheetahs. We're told VERY early on, and quite frequently, not to give Shadow any opportunities to get a hold of any of our fingers, as legend has it she has already taken someone's finger off when they tried to stroke her through the bars. Fine with me...if only she didn't have such a sweet little face...

So while I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, there's time to examine the hyena. It really is an odd-looking creature -- the front part is quite large and hulking, and then quite suddenly it drops away into these tiny little hindquarters. The female is much larger than the male, and her head is very teddy-like, but the call they let out at night is really rather eerie. Not to mention the sound they make when they're chewing on impala bones...

Moving on, to the cheetahs. I love them. Loooove them. They're so graceful and beautiful and soft...ahem. The cheetahs are not exactly on the powerful side (although don't get me wrong, they could still kick my ass), but their weapon is speed. We get to see a demonstration in the parking lot where they let Jolly run off after a lure. It's incredible. I have to grab hold of him at the end, and even though he's paying most attention to the meat in front of him, it's clear that if he wasn't I'd have an interesting time holding him still.

At one point they bring Juba out for us to have a pat (I was SO. EXCITED.), and just having that great animal there in front of you, be able to feel all the muscles under his fur, the beautifully soft hank of spotted fur at his neck, and to have him licking your arm (and drawing a little bit of blood - man, those tongues are sharp!) -- was just the most amazing feeling. I fell completely in love.

Moving on, because otherwise that's where I'm going to stay...there are also 4 lions at the camp, and a great big leopard named Chui. Now you might be forgiven for expecting cheetahs and leopards to be similar in build, but you'd be wrong. Chui is unmistakably powerful, which is unfortunately why we can't go in with him (sigh). In fact, it's six of one as to whether he or the lions are carrying the most power. But Chui has been hand raised, and he still likes waddling over (let's be honest, he's carrying a bit of holiday weight) to lean against the fence and be scratched.

Over to the lions, and for sheer size and power it's Big Boy and Ditch up the back -- oh my WORD, they're huge. Every morning on the way to breakfast we pass them, and sometimes they're there at the fence, prowling, staring that gorgeous green-eyed stare...It becomes clear that they've got way too much muscle weight to be going anything as fast as the cheetahs, and this explains why they're the only big cat to hunt in prides. But man alive, you've got to respect that honey badger for giving it a go...

Over by Chui are Sarah and Blondie, who are ex circus lions. Blondie, in fact, has no teeth, owing to a rather horrible history of being caged, and then breaking his teeth on the bars. Sarah, however, is sheer power, and though she's unwell at the moment and so confined to a smaller cage, she really, REALLY doesn't like it when you bring brooms to clean out the one next to her. Something about the brooms and the circus, I would guess, is recalling something particularly nasty.

Back down to Xinandi, who is the one big cat that we are frequently allowed in with, and who is calm enough to let us go up to her alone and give her a good old pat. And when you're crouching down rubbing the head of a cheetah, and the cheetah is purring her rumbling contented purr...well.

PS -- Important safety tip: when scratching the cheetahs through the fence (which is allowed among the staff, but only advised if the animal is purring), make DAMN sure you're not kneeling on the electric fence wire. It HURTS.

Honey badger maintenance

Routine at the wildlife centre started pretty quickly. Up at 10-to-7, wash face, dress (what to wear, what to wear...thankfully this decision is rendered moot by the requirement to dress always in the camp t-shirt, which ranges from khaki to...darker-khaki), grab camera and a bottle of water and hot-foot it up the hill to the clinic, where we begin our daily rounds.

We're in one of four groups, and mine is in charge of feeding and cleaning the cages of the following:

• Honey badgers (excellent value)
• Wild dogs (would have been more exciting had we been able to go in the cage)
• Mixed Vultures (here's one I would have preferred not to enter the cage of)
• White faced owls
• Guinea Fowl

It starts like this: first we scuffle round to see who wants to do what (mostly it's between the badgers and the dogs, and all the birds together). I'm not a bird person, so let's start with the badgers.

Bucket, brush, broom, trowel, and 20 dead one-day-old chicks covered in calcium powder. Mmmmm. Helloooo breakfast. Hopefully the chicks are defrosted, so we don't have to do that whole fill-bowl-with-water-and-poke-at-chicks-until-they-feel-squidgy part ourselves. Trot on down the hill to the badgers' enclosure, wherein reside two little specimens: Stoffel (the male) and Hammy (female). Stoffel is tricksy and slippery and aggressive to boot, so we're not allowed to touch him much. Hammy, however, is mostly friendly, though you have to watch out, because she loves getting out of the enclosure too. She's my favourite, and I like to reach down and let her grab hold of my hand and pull herself up by her tiny, powerful shoulders. Sometimes I let her hang onto the edge of the wall while I scratch her, and once while I was sitting on the wall she grabbed hold of my sneaker, and while it was fun at first, it soon became clear that she was planning to climb up my leg, and then it was all: GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!

Once we've thrown a few chicks to the badgers and they're busy ripping the heads off, we shut them off in one half of the enclosure, jump the wall and start cleaning. Poo-picking, scrubbing the walls to get their paw-marks off, and cleaning out the water bowl. Also, and we'll take note at this one, making sure you don't dong your head on the thick wooden beam that forms part of the back shelter. This is easier to do than you would have thought.

Once you've recovered from the little cartoon badgers running around your field of vision, it's time to switch, switch, switch! Up and out, move the badgers, tempt them with some cleverly placed chicks, close them off and then it's lather, rinse, repeat in the second half. In the meantime you get to reach down and grab hold of Hammy's paw and watch as she tries to climb up your arm to get out. Hammy is occasionally allowed out of the enclosure, but Stoffel is pretty much not, especially since he managed, using a stick, to climb out himself and into the lion cage. I didn't see it, but I'm told that once Stoffel got a good hold on Big Boy's privates, it was a pretty even fight. Hardy little creatures, them honey badgers.

The Wild Dogs are less taxing -- just fill up their water bowl and swimming pool, really, and don't put your fingers through the fence. Check! Just a quick hello to Taz, who is by himself, poor bugger, as he's broken his back and is not fit to run with the pack. He's a skittish little thing, but very sweet.

Back up at the birds, the mixed vultures (the party mix of the animal world) need their enclosure scrubbed -- all that poo off the stumps, trees, rocks etc, and the water pools need to be scrubbed, emptied and refilled. Then do a feather-pick (absolute waste of time, considering how many feathers there are in there) and rake, all the while making sure you don't on any occasion look like you're dead. Holding a rake is a good idea, especially since in the mornings they like to stretch their wings out to warm them, and this makes them look about ten times more threatening. Then we gather up our stuff and make a run for the door. Woo!

Off to the white faced owls, who need very little maintenance. Quick scrub, couple of dead chicks (as food, not dead owl chicks) and a peek inside the next to see whether mum has given birth yet. She hasn't, and doesn't like you staring at her. Hooooo.

Through the cage are the guinea fowls -- silly looking birds with beautiful blue feathers on their chests (though they're pretty tame, they're also hanging on to those feathers pretty tightly, so good luck trying to pull one out). They need their floor raked, poo picked, and feed and water checked. Also you'll need to poke at them every now and then with the rake just to move them along. A quick check for eggs (none!) and you're done!

Phew! After this it's off on a ten-minute hike through the jungle to breakfast, which, surrounded by little grey monkeys who are after the fruit (people are obliged to throw cutlery every now and then to keep them off the food), is completely worth it. A feast of yoghurt and all-bran, a couple of bits of bacon, and it's back into the jungle for the uphill walk home.

Going bush...

Once Cape Town's journey came to a close, and I was suitably done with adventuring, I toddled off to places unknown (no, really -- the booking company told me on the morning of departure that I wasn't going to the place I'd booked at, rather at some other place 8 hours to the north-east, near the Kruger). Since I hadn't planned on going to any malaria regions, I was a little apprehensive, but some complimentary malaria tablets were shoved into my hand, my luggage squeezed into a car, and away we went.

The drive was uneventful for the first half as we traversed the upper veldt -- it's dry and flat and very much featureless -- so I slept for most of it, waking periodically as we were told to drink! Drink! Drink! They're big on drinking (water, that is) in South Africa. This, as I was to discover later, was not without good reason. At any rate, we soon reached the lower veldt, and that's where everything started too look pretty amazing.

It was all looking really green and lush, mountains sprouting up here and there, and great rocky cliffs lining the road. Ahead, a massive grey cloud hung over the Drakensberg Mountains, lit up every few seconds by forks of lightning that crackled through it. The other side of that, I was told, was my destination. Awesome.

The rest of the drive was beautiful -- a vastly different view of Africa than I'd seen in Cape Town and my brief overnight stay in Johannesburg. From green mountains to rocky gullies, where tree roots took hold of the outside of the rock and climbed for their lives skyward, to deep flat dry valleys, spotted with bush huts and where the roads were lined with children making their long, long, long way home from school. As we drew closer to the camp we passed block after block of private game reserves, and at one point, and a shout of "BABOONS!" we slowed to let this group of bare-backsided creatures gambol across the road, frowning suspiciously at as as we passed. Then, "GIRAFFES!" off to the left! Three of them inside the fence of the game reserve, picking at the high leaves of the acacia trees and eyeing us curiously. I felt like I'd really gotten into -- or at least closer to -- what Africa really was.

As the light faded and we dodged the odd rainfall, we made it to the camp, deep in the centre of a reserve, passing kudu and the ever-present impala (not the car), all the way up to the gates, outside of which stood a great grey rhino...I was to see more of him later.

Inside the gates I was met by the centre's "student" liaison, and a couple of bush pigs, Mona and Lisa, who quickly took a liking to my luggage. Apparently they're quite partial to it, as a whole, and so I trundled, first at a trot, then as my pursuers kicked it up a notch, into a full-blown run (which in hindsight was probably the dumbest thing I could have done), down the dusty path with my incredibly unsuitable wheelie-bag, to the safety of the cottages. On the way I passed three cheetahs (in cages) and a hyena (also, and thank heaven, caged), and some odd little guinea-pigs-gone feral that I would later identify as dassies. In my room there were four teeny baby rabbits and a couple of baby squirrels (of which I'll also speak later). It wasn't all going to keep being so amazing, but for now I'll leave it so.

The sun dipped over the mountains and twilight descended.

Getting serious

You can't go to Africa and not see it. It's not an attraction, rather an inevitability, and it's there, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. For us it was right next door, even in front of us, while we went to work. I'm talking about poverty.

There were suggestions floating around the house of a township tour, which to me sounded initially insensitive. It seemed wrong to go to the homes of poor people as though it was tourism. The thing I decided in the end, though, was that to get an idea of Africa as a whole, you've got to encounter its scars. Look at District 6, which used to be an interracial area full of blacks, coloureds, whites, Malay, etc. Until apartheid (still only 14 years ago!) meant that the area was evacuated of any people of colour and declared a white-only living space.

We knew that walking to work each day we would brush against the Site 5 township -- now called Masiphumelele ("we will succeed, in Xhosa) -- 30-40% of its 50,000 inhabitants were living with HIV, and all on top of each other.

Our tour was regrettably voyeuristic for the most part -- us in the van trying not to look as though we were taking photos, but unable to resist it when we saw the children. They were beautiful, standing in front of the most appalling conditions, but as soon as they caught your eye they would break out into a wide-mouthed, white-toothed smile, and it was impossible not to smile and wave back, and open the window to chat to them and show them the photos you just took. The acrid smell of roasting sheeps heads and corn would drift over the road, and tin shebeens would almost shake with the amount of people inside. Of course, just as you began to relax a little too much, there was a shout from our driver, who rolled up his window and put his foot down hard on the accellerator -- we all looked to the left to see the flash of a machete as it was weilded in a knife fight further up a side-street. That's the kind of thing that reminds you you're in a totally different world.

To counter that experience, however, we were shuffled along and out of the van (thank heavens) to listen to street performers and dance with the children along the side of a road. It's the cheerfulness and the love that shoots up in little pockets in those townships that make you really stare. The fact that love can survive or even flourish amongst those conditions, and the sense of community that means all these people would band together to help one another.

My perspectives on life were being shifted significantly.