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Ping-Pong. Wow, what a marvelous game! My company made the poor and unwise decision to invest in a ping-pong table for our third floor “commons” area. It is certainly where I have been spending all of my free time lately.

On Sunday afternoon I finally got to experience the epic conclusion to the Bourne series, The Bourne Ultimatum, an event that has been five years in the making for me. I’ll get in trouble if I call “Bourne” the greatest movies of all time, but they are personal favorites for me… in a Top 6 list, the three movies in the series place within it.

The Bourne movies have been wonderfully constructed, portraying a secret agent in a way that hasn’t been done before – heroic within reason, clever beyond imagination, and tortured by his own capabilities. They are paced ever so well with the perfect balance of storyline, suspense, and action – not too much or too little in any respect.

I was so happy with the way Bourne Ultimatum tied things together: First, the overlay of time / events between Supremacy and Ultimatum was clever, and I hadn’t expected that… I figured it would pick up right where Supremacy left off, but it actually went back in time and filled in events for six weeks prior. The Bourne movies have become known for their car chase scenes – the first movie pushed an old Mini Cooper to it’s limit, and the second absolutely destroyed a Moscow taxi-cab. I like how they did the chases in the third one though – a lot of “foot” chases, with Bourne using clever tactics to elude those who were pursuing him by using his seeminly inborn agent abilities. And towards the end of the movie, seeing him tear up New York City in a cop car was fantastic.

I loved the ending – it was perfect, and I couldn’t have hoped for anything better. It filled in just enough gaps to leave you satisfied, yet at the same time kept you wondering a bit… what’s next? There’s lots of talk about whether or not there will be a 4th movie, and I personally hope there isn’t (from an artistic perspective). It ended dramatically answering the big question of whether or not Bourne was alive or dead, and immediatly went to credits with Moby’s song “Extreme Ways”… but unlike the other movies, Moby did a remix of the song for this movie that seemed to say “this is the end… Bourne is finished now”. Plus the end credits were artistically dramatically different which I felt also indicated a definitive end to the series.

All in all, I am so satisfied and relieved that the directors / producers took such care in executing an artisically brilliant action movie, something that in and of itself rarely happens. The movie I highly recommend (as a theater must-see), and if you’re behind on the series as a whole, now is the time to get up to speed!

Today you should listen to:
Moby “Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum)“

It wouldn’t be the 4th of July without a little bit of fireworks, so in true American fashion Steph and I had Justin and Hannah over for a little pre-evening-celebration hamburger cookout. Steph’s brother, Theo and Joey, are staying with us over the next couple weeks, so we figured we’d go ahead and grill a bunch of hamburgers that they could eat while we’re at work the next couple of days.

So we get the big tub of meat – 4lbs of ground beef. And I’m feeling good that this is going to be a great grilling day… I’ve got my Lawrys, I’ve got my parika, I’ve got my red pepper flakes, and I start making some of the most beautiful hamburger patties I’ve ever seen. Got about 14 of them ready to go, fire up the grill, let it warm up for a bit, and then start just stacking on the most wonderful array of meat ever to lay across a 4th of July grill.

Things are going well. I step inside for a bit to talk and…..

* disaster strikes *

Something happened in the 30 seconds I was in the kitchen, because when I looked out the back porch window moments later, my entire grill was engulfed in smoke. The porch area is filling up quickly with toxic fumes, so I run outside, grab the lid of the grill and throw it open. Flames are spewing forth like a flamethrower. Helplessly I grab my BBQ utensils and start shoving meat around. Smoke has clouded up the porch door now – my family and friends are peering out in stark horror. Even the cat is unsettled. I truly don’t know what I’m doing at this point – something has gone terribly wrong. I do the only thing I can think of and start turning off burners. This doesn’t help. The entire inside of the grill is on fire and every time I touch meat more grease drips off and sets off a new wave of smoke, flames, and chaos. I pull Justin outside with me… not because he can necessarily help, but because I want to be in this together with someone, and when the girls start ridiculing me later and I need him on my side.

I start moving burgers around, stacking them on top of the other, sacrificing the bottom burgers to the raging inferno to give the other burgers a chance. There are no grill burners on now – I’ve got a perpetual conflagration of grease that is going to burn these things to a crisp. Somehow I finally get to the point where I am managing mass chaos and get a system going where I am cycling all the burgers through a warm area of the grill to cook while the rest of the fire burns down. Before each one goes through I have to use the sharp edge of my spatula to chip off charred cow in an attempt to get a decently even cooking experience.

Drama I tell you, drama.

The majority of the burgers turned out fine, save two that ended up looking like charcoal lumps that I literally had to pry away from the grill. Happy 4th of July.

Stephanie and I went to an artisan festival on Sunday – hundreds of painters, potters, photographers, etc. The highlight for me was a photographer named Jack Stoddart. This guy is as old school as they come. Serious about his art and his method. Jack’s from the Plateau region of Tennessee, east of Nashville, about halfway to Knoxville. Together he and his wife moved to the area about 35 years ago with the intention of creating a “black and white silver gelatin historical documentation” of the area. The silver gelatin process, which I don’t fully understand yet, is a dying art… so much so that the last remaining manufacturer who provided the developing paper needed to reproduce the images recently went out of business, effectively putting Jack out of business. But I won’t pretend to speak with authority on things I know nothing about….

Jack’s pictures speak for themselves. His vintage method of capturing and re-producing life is striking, and as a result of this developing process you are left with an image that reminds you of the worn oval pictures of your great-great-great-grandparents, hanging on your relatives hallway walls. The silver-gelatin and washing process leaves the picture with this aged and rugged feeling, as though you can feel years through the picture itself, yet the photograph jumps out at you with such a vibrancy and life that it just captivates your attention.

Recently Jack has been honored for his work by being accepted into several museums, not the least of which is the Museum Of American History at the Smithsonian. If you have an appreciation for film photography, check out Jack’s online gallery. The resolution online isn’t the best and doesn’t do the film justice, but you may get the general impression:

Online Gallery: jackstoddart.com