Pictureland

Sometimes, one can't help but imagine the pitch meetings.  In the case of The Sapphires , it could well have gone something like...think of Whale Rider meets The Commitments!   Or perhaps it was more a matter of Rabbit Proof Fence meeting Dream Girls .  And then they placed a conference call to The Commitments .  Though I suppose it would be Skype at this point. What we have more specifically with The Sapphires is a film about a group of aboriginal young women whose musical aspirations converge with a shambolic soul-music-loving Irishman.  These charmingly disparate souls soon find themselves touring the war zone that was Vietnam in 1968.  All of this based on a play of the same name.  And based loosely, as is said (and quite appropriately, in this case), on real events and characters. The 1968 timing is significant not only for all the upheaval that was occurring in the world, but for what was beginning to happen in Australia.  The...

I was done with Seattle the night before.  Perhaps a bit of road weariness.  Certainly too much walking around in the dark in the southern extremes of the Capitol Hill neighborhood (or perhaps the north end of First Hill), trying to read my guidebook under dim lamplight like an idiot, an advertisement for street crime.  We didn't find the pizza place for which we were looking and wandering, but were able to find a a booth in a crowded Pike Street bar where there was pretty respectable thin crust (it's utter apostasy for someone living in Chicago, but I much prefer New York style pizza) to be had.  But not even the life-giving slices and a couple of pints could restore the excitement I had felt to be in a new city just the day before.   Good then, that I was traveling with someone of more sanguine outlook.  At her prompting, we decided to check out both Capitol Hill's Washington Park and the neighborhood of Fremont before we quitted Seattle.  Acr...

Oh, what's in store for breakfast?  So one wonders in establishments where any sort of morning meal is promised.  Of course, we've all been around the block enough times to look askance at the promise of a "Continental Breakfast."  Sort of like browsing for some mid-century antique on eBay and realizing that every object from the time of Ramses II through something produced last week in China is characterized as "Eames Era."  Who has not been left wondering what's so continental about a second rate bagel and some watery orange juice? So, we crept down to the Ace's lower level meal room wondering what and who we might find.  There was the essential - coffee, respectable as you might expect in Seattle and at such a hotel.  And the makings of a simple, satisfying breakfast.  Plus waffles.  This seems to be a thing in Washington hotels just now.  Or the out of town guests have been clamoring for them.  Hard to say.  So, among t...