Malibu morning picture of the day - Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

Happy Tuesday to you all. Here's the view on the Pacific Coast today.

There is no visible ocean this morning. A fog sets upon the water that when hit by the sun gives a morning brightness that is probably as close to blinding stage lights as one can get in a natural setting.

Here is a second view with the fog settled into the canyons as well as upon the sea.

This weekend I took the opportunity to go see an animated film that was nominated for an Oscar this past month, Song of the Sea directed by Tomm Moore. Here's the succinct blurb that you get on a Google search:

"An Irish youth discovers that his mute sister is a selkie who must find her voice and free supernatural creatures from the spell of a Celtic goddess."

I figured it would not be on a big screen very much longer (came out late last year), so I took a break between doing tax clients' returns to go check it out. To my surprise, the theatre had quite a few patrons in for this film (several families which is the target demo), where I usually would find only a few animation buffs like myself scattered about.

 I've seen it for sale on Amazon.com now, so if you can't find it at your city's art film house, I highly recommend it if you're fan of creative animation and story treatments where the inhabitants of the everyday world encounter the ancient and supernatural. I had not read any advance press, but as soon as it started I realized it was from the same maker of The Secret of Kells which is about making of the famous Book of Kells illuminated manuscript. If this all sounds terribly highbrow, dry, and boring, I guarantee you it is not.

 I won't deconstruct the movie for you, but one thing I found terribly funny is Moore's brief satire within the film on what it's like to be "kidnapped" to live with an older relative (the grandmother of the protagonist boy in this case) and being forced to endure being in a space comfortable that would be only comfortable for someone two generations older than you. I thought the movie was going to dwell there for more than a while, but no, it quickly moved into the primary quest story. This satire however is hilariously (to me) echoed later in the film when the boy encounters the similarly grandmotherly Celtic Owl Goddess who overprotects her son and causes great harm to the fairy world by doing so. If you don't like films where there is horribly malevolent evil which operates for its own sake, this one is OK for you, trust me. (But then you probably thought Sauron was just misunderstood and had unresolved father issues...)

The Little Mermaid is perhaps the most
well-known selkie-like story to us.

If you're not familiar with selkie stories (there are similar ones in all cultures), it's where a person marries a supernatural being and the aftermath of that pairing. It usually goes OK for a while, inevitably there's a major breakup because the differences are too great. 

In these stories there are always children born, so I think they're a culture's dealing with "mixed-race" people--and the basic lesson is you cannot be both A and B, you've got to be one or the other. Usually the outcome is the child picks the majority culture, but sometimes it goes the other way, but in those cases, it's basically lifelong separation from family which is akin to death. 

The Chinese version of a selkie story is called White Snake, (this story, like The Little Mermaid, has been made into many movies, cartoons, plays, and operas), but we'll save that for another day.

Watching Song of the Sea reminded me how much I am a fan of Celtic lore, literature, storytelling, art, and music. I was probably Irish in an earlier life, but unfortunately I can't seem to hold a lot of liquor in my body, so that part didn't seem to make it through to this incarnation. I DO have plenty of self-hatred though and can hold a grudge when inspired. That's it for today.

Love,

Pops