Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Last night I watched the movie Sicario. It was released in 2015 and has been on my to-see list since then. ...Not very high on my list, obviously, as it's taken me 7½ years to get to it. 😅 This is a non-spoiler review.

Going in to the movie I expected it to be a shoot-'em-up, cops-and-robbers action flick, drug cartel hit men vs. the DEA or FBI. That's the impression I got from seeing the trailer in theaters 7½ years ago, anyway. That's not what it's about. BTW, I recommend against watching the trailer if you haven't seen the movie yet. Various reviews caution that the trailer gives away all the action scenes. That's because Sicario is not fundamentally an action movie. Yes, there are guns-out action scenes. Violence comes hard and fast. But it comes in discrete pieces. The movie is more of a cloak-and-dagger thriller, where the main character is trying to figure out what's really going on in this murky plot she's been hooked into, and we (the audience) are trying to figure it out along with her. It's also a dark story that conveys grim morals.



Sicario stars Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro. Blunt is the aforementioned main character, a young FBI agent who agrees to serve on an inter-agency project after her team discovers the bodies of several dozen victims murdered by a drug cartel. Brolin is the leader of the inter-agency team, and Del Toro is a mysterious operative with a personal stake in the outcome.

Sicario, the film tells us in an overlay at the beginning, is a word that comes from the Latin word sicarius. It was coined 2,000 years ago when insurgents in Judea fought Roman invaders. A sicarius was a hunter who murdered Roman officers. In Spanish sicario means assassin.

The film was directed by Denis Villeneuve with cinematographer Roger Deakins and audio director Jóhann Jóhannsson. I mentioned these three directors because they made the film so much more than just an action flick. Deakins's visuals are beautiful, combining visuals of the desert landscape with helicopter overheads and views through night-vision goggles and infrared cameras in ways that aren't gimmicky. Jóhannsson's orchestration helps set the mood of tension without drawing attention to itself.

The visual work of the movie, and its telling of a story with grim morals, reminded me of the 2000 movie Traffic. That was directed by Steven Soderburgh, though both movies have Benicio Del Toro as one of the leads. Del Toro's characters are not the same person, though it's possible to imagine one is like the other but 15 years later. That's because Del Toro carefully underplays both of them, portraying characters who are surprisingly capable yet believably underestimated by their opponents.

Del Toro's acting in Sicario is better because the character is in some ways more challenging. In Traffic his character was a police officer who wanted to stop chasing drug kingpins and get back to some semblance of normal, watching neighborhood kids play baseball. In Sicario his character burns with an understated intensity because he's resigned himself that there is no other way. Curiously one of the last scenes in the movie is a neighborhood kids' baseball game— I'm not sure to what degree that's an intentional homage— but instead of watching and enjoying the game, Del Toro admonishes one of the other leads, "You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now."

Episode 2 of Band of Brothers, "Day of Days", follows the actions of Easy Company on D-Day. Compared to the character drama and leadership lesson of episode 1 this episode shifts to the classic war movie genre, where the miniseries stays until its last few episodes. The story becomes action driven, with soldiers having to overcome multiple challenges, many unexpected, to not only fulfill their mission but even just stay alive.

That said, there's still lots of great character development. Ep. 2 really brings the series' two main characters, Richard Winters and Bill Nixon, to the fore.



Winters and Nix are way more human and fun to follow than sadistic and ultimately gormless Capt. Sobel. They've got genuine bromance energy that (spoiler alert!) runs throughout the whole miniseries. By the time of D-Day, though, they've been split up by the powers that be. Leadership has tapped Nix to be an intelligence officer at the battalion level because he's got a sharp mind. Meanwhile, Winters leads a platoon in Easy Company and, without villainous Capt. Sobel looming over his shoulder, shines as a genuinely talented young military officer.

A few notes about terminology: Easy Company, or just "Easy" as it's called shorthand in many places in the show, does not mean the work is easy! The companies within a battalion are named by alphabet code. The alphabet code used by the US in WWII was Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, etc. So Easy Company was organizationally Company Number 5 within the battalion. Sometimes conversation is, "Dog will do this, Easy will do that, Fox will be over here." They're talking about companies' roles within the larger mission.

"The Day of Days", referenced in the episode title, is a reverential way soldiers referred to the unprecedented action of D-Day. Before it happened it was code named Operation Overlord. "D-Day" began a technical term used in planning. Leaders would say things like, "On D-Day, at T-Time, your company will do this," because the date was either not known or not shared in advance. Indeed, at the end of the previous episode the soldiers are all ready to go for D-Day, but D-Day is delayed to another day because of bad weather.



D-Day does not go exactly smoothly, BTW. As the scene follows the paratroopers in planes over Normandy, the aircraft start taking heavy fire from German positions on the ground. Yes, the planes are flying under cover of night (it's pre-dawn) but there are so many of them— a blanket of planes fill the sky— the Germans see and hear them coming.

Here the series takes on a definite tone of "War is Hell". It's a parallel to the War-is-Hell opening set piece of Saving Private Ryan. Both are about D-Day, though one is the beach assault and the other is the paratroopers dropping behind enemy lines. One was directed by Steven Spielberg and starred Tom Hanks, the other is co-produced by Spielberg and Hanks.

Here, with the focus on the paratroopers, we see some of the planes shot down before the paratroops can even deploy. Entire squads of soldiers are killed before they even jump. (That's a direct parallel to how Saving Private Ryan showed entire landing craft of soldiers killed before reaching shore.) The new commander of Easy Company is one of them. This sets up an opportunity for Lt. Winters to step up and shine as an individual and as the series's central character.

Keep reading: Day of Days, part 2.

During my first watch-through of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl I found the actors' accents jarring. It's not that they're speaking English with Russian accents that are hard to understand; it's that they're not speaking with Russian accents. They're speaking with British and Irish accents. It's like watching Star Wars Game of Thrones! Plus, the senior party apparatchik in Pripyat is Maester Luwin from Winterfell.

In the episode 1 podcast showrunner Craig Mazin explains his deliberate choice not to have the actors speak with Russian accents. He notes that even professional actors tend to "act the accent". He didn't want actors subconsciously hamming up a Russian stereotype, turning the show into a self parody a la "Boris and Natasha". Moreover, he explained, he wanted the actors to be able to convey emotions clearly with their voices. It's harder to do that when they're struggling to portray foreign accents.

Mazin still wanted it to sound foreign to US audiences, though. He cast primarily English, Scottish, and Irish actors. By the third episode their accents stopped breaking me out of the moment... except for the few additional times actors used British idioms.

Keep reading: Open Wide, O Earth

On January 6, 2021 I quipped that our republic— the term for our form government the Republic party had become fond of using, apparently not because it is accurate but merely because of its name similarity— had added the descriptor banana. With an attempted palace coup led by the president to try to overthrow Congress to stay in office despite overwhelmingly losing the election, we had become a banana republic.

But how do we compare to other banana republics? This week we got a new data point. Pedro Castillo, the bumbling president of Peru who'd already been impeached by the country's Congress, attempted a palace coup. He announced he was dissolving Congress. That Congress swiftly and overwhelmingly impeached him. As he tried to flee in his presidential limousine, police stopped him and arrested him. A new president, Dina Boluarte, has already been sworn in, while Castillo remains in custody facing charges.

Wow. All that happened in less than three days. Meanwhile here in the US we're going on 2 years since a failed palace coup with no meaningful consequences for the president who orchestrated it. Indeed he's even running for reelection... while also recently calling for suspending the Constitution and installing himself in office. Oh, and unlike Castillo, who was impeached by an overwhelming majority of the Congress, including members of his own party, members of Trump's party by-and-large still defend his absurd claims that the election he lost was rigged and rampantly fraudulent.

In related news I encountered a new word a week or two ago: Kakistocracy. It's government by the least suitable or least competent citizens.

The other day I saw a Buzzfeed listicle¹ in my newsfeed entitled "21 Surprising Confessions From Women Who Earn "Significantly More" Money Than Their Partners" (Buzzfeed, 31 Oct 2022). It's about the relationship dynamics of couples where the woman partner earns more than the male. Women earning more than men in some families is not a new phenomenon, though once virtually unheard of it has been growing more common. Yet it still surprises me how common old-fashioned, narrow-minded attitudes about it are. Too many men feel ashamed of it, are shamed by friends and relatives for it, and try to deny it or manipulate it.

I've always looked at those stories of shame and denial and shaken my head. If my partner were earning more than me, I've long said, I'd support her and celebrate her success! Now I get a chance to put my mouth where my money is. Hawk is earning more than me this year.

This is a reversal of... basically forever in our relationship. I've long had more earning power than her as I earned a STEM degree, and a masters degree, and have worked in technical jobs since my second year of college. Often my salary was 2x hers, or higher.

In the past few years Hawk has climbed the corporate ladder more successfully than I have, increasing her salary greatly. That combined with working at a company beating its financial targets (both of us have a bonus or commission tied to company revenue) has vaulted her past me in earnings for this year. She'll finish 2022 earning 20% more than me.

So, now that the earnings reversal is real as opposed to merely hypothetical, how do I feel? I feel the same as I've always said I would. I'm happy for her. She's worked hard. She's earned it. And we both benefit.

---

[1] A listicle is a form of lazy modern journalism where a reporter writes a feature article that's really just a list of best-of responses in a thread on social media like Twitter or Reddit. List + article = listicle.

One thing that struck me as I started watching Andor, the latest Star Wars spinoff streaming on Disney+, is, "OMG, the Irish have colonized the galaxy!" At least one-third of the characters speak with obvious Northern Ireland brogues. Most of the rest have other various British Isles accents, including a lot that sound to my ears like northern English. It all felt quite familiar, though, because I've been hearing the same accents throughout the 4½ seasons of Game of Thrones I've watched so far. The mid rim is the North, and the Lannisters are the Empire! 😂

The obvious explanation, of course, is that these shows are produced in the UK with actors largely cast from the UK. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. While it sounds strange to my American ears, it's no stranger than Brits wondering why every other damn fantasy/scifi show they watch has most of its characters speaking with US accents. It is a bit disorienting in GoT, though, that some of the actors' accents wax and wane. For example, Petyr Baelish spoke with a flat, Home Counties accent in seasons 1-3; in seasons 4-5 he's got a noticeable brogue.

An interesting fact I read years ago is that English accents were a deliberate part of the original Star Wars trilogy. George Lucas intentionally cast English actors in most of the roles as imperial officers and US actors in most of the roles as rebels. He wanted to play to American audiences a sense of the American Revolution, that scrappy American rebels were fighting for their freedom from heavy-handed rule by the British Empire.

Pacific Northwest September Travelog #8
Vancouver, WA - Sat, 3 Sep 2022,11pm

I can tell right now that if I try to keep a linear blog about this trip I will fall very far behind. Partly that's because today has been just packed. After leaving the hotel at 9:30— a pretty good start after arriving late last night— we drove east up the Columbia River and then north into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to visit a series of waterfalls.

Before leaving town, though, we stopped at an amazing local donut shop. "Are you buying a half dozen?" the cashier asked. The food looked so amazing I took the liberty of saying Yes. We each ate one in the car. Then another one later in the day. The last one each are for tomorrow morning. We might have to get more after that. 🤣

You might wonder about the name Gifford Pinchot National Forest. I've used that name a few times before , most recently when visiting a bunch of waterfalls in Washington in August. Gifford Pinchot was a person (which you might have guessed). He was the first head of the US Forest Service after it was established in 1905. He also served two terms as Governor of Pennsylvania later in his life.

Gifford Pinchot wasn't the only noticeable name today. The other was Stinky Pud. I chuckled when I saw election posters all along the roads in Vancouver for a Don Steinke. "Poor guy, his name is pronounced Stinky," I said to no one in particular.

Then I wondered what office he's running for. Is he looking to become Mayor Stinky? Assembly member Stinky? Sheriff Stinky? And that's where it got even funnier. He's running for— I kid you not— PUD. That's what it says on his campaign signs. PUD. That's Public Utility District, BTW. He's running to be one of its commissioners. But he's got PUD in bold letters on his signs. Stinky Pud!

Anyway, long day, a bunch of waterfalls. We didn't get back to our hotel until sometime after 10pm. Tomorrow will be... well, I don't know! It may be a hike along a ridge at Mount St. Helens, or maybe we'll go for some more waterfalls. Or maybe both!

I saw an article in my newsfeed Friday from The Atlantic, America Is Running Out of ‘COVID Virgins’. Subsequently that term, "Covid Virgin", seemed to pop up on other news articles over the weekend. It seemed to be part of what-can-we-talk-about-now news cycle of President Biden testing positive for Covid-19 two days earlier.

I take this turn of phrase, "Covid Virgin", personally. It means people like me (I've never had Covid) and it is not meant kindly. In popular culture to call someone a virgin is at best polite snickering over their putative lack of physical beauty and/or ineptness at romance. Indeed the Atlantic article paints "Covid Virgins" in a negative light right in its subhead with the rhetorical question, If you haven’t gotten the coronavirus, are you a sitting duck?

No, people like me are not sitting ducks. I have avoided Covid for 2+ years through not just luck but also lots of good judgment and preparation. Starting in March 2020 I drastically reduced my outings to stores, restaurants, and events. I wore a mask everywhere in public indoors settings starting when the CDC recommended shortly thereafter and I still do. I suspended travel for months and eased back into it with an eye on public health recommendations and data. I got my vaccination when it was first available to me. I got not just one but two boosters, also when they were first available. In short, I'm healthy in part because I've done things right.

Social matters do hit a tipping point though, a point after which up becomes down, good becomes bad, and right becomes wrong. As in the classic Dr. Seuss children's story, once there are enough Star Bellied Sneetches it becomes a mark of shame to be a Plain Bellied Sneetch. The Atlantic article cites a recent study from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation estimating that 82% of Americans have had Covid already. When we're the 18% it's easy for vast majority to start shaming us with terminology.

But here's the thing the smug people in the 82% should remember: Losing your Covid V-card won't help you. People are getting reinfected. Prior infection alone is weak protection— weaker than getting vaccinated, weaker than precautions like wearing a face mask correctly in high risk situations, and weaker than making wiser choices where possible.

It's hard to believe it's Round 10 of my beer tasting 2022 project, but here we are. Round 10. For this round I decided to continue branching out a bit. After tasting lagers in rounds 8 and 9— Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy and ShaKa Brewing's Sunnyvale Pale Lager I decided it's worth going a bit deeper into the category.

I tend to prefer ales over lagers. The two categories are very broad, though, so there are ample variations to consider. As I was shopping online through my favorite liquor store I homed in on the bock sub-categoy of lagers. I remember enjoying bocks when I found them (rarely) in my early 20s so I figured I taste them again to see if I still like them. ...Especially now, when it's easy to find many different styles and brands of bock.

Bock is a style of lager created in Germany, like, 700 years ago. It tends to be dark and with a rich taste, though that's not totally a rule across the sub-varieties. For Round 10's tasting I grabbed two bocks that are in slightly different styles. So it's not exactly a head to head test, but it is... a bock to bock comparison. 😂🍺🍺



For this round I started with Hofbräu Dunkel (on the right), a classic dark lager. Hofbräu has been brewing beer in Bavaria, Germany for 400 years and is a well recognized brand there. I wanted to taste it against another German beer of the same style, but the two I'd put on my list were both sold out. Alas, while imported bocks are much easier to find in 2022 than 1992 they're still not that popular in the US. So I went to the next bock on my list, Estrella Galicia Reserva Especial 1906, from Galicia in the northwest of Spain. Estrella Reserva (above left) is a maibock, a paler variety of bock brewed with slightly more hops.

Going into this tasting round I expected I'd prefer Hofbräu Dunkel. It's dark, toasty, and very slightly sweet... not just in taste but also practically in its color. The taste is strong but balanced and doesn't linger. It's a great example of its variety. And yet....

When I tasted the Estrella Reserva, which I sorta poo-poohed while pouring it into the glass because of its lighter color, I was blown away. It is not a light beer. Not only is it high-ish alcohol content with 6.5% ABV but it's got a rich, toasty malt flavor. It's just not as strong with the dark flavors as Hofbräu Dunkel. It more than makes up for that, though, with just enough hops bitterness to really balance out the sweet, toasty flavors. The hops give it a nice, clean finish that makes it complement food really well.

After my first taste of these beers with food I came back around and tried them solo. Solo, they're a bit more neck-and-neck. As with other strongly flavored beers I've tried, you've got to be in the mood of "I really want a dark beer right now" to enjoy Hofbräu Dunkel. Estrella Reserve is more... beer flavored. The Hofbräu Dunkel does go surprisingly well with chocolate, though.

Language & History Lesson in a Beer Stein

By the way, bock is German for goat. "What's this beer got to do with goats?" you may wonder. Remember how I remarked above that bock has been around for 700 years? It was created in the city of Einbeck, in Germany's northwest. When Bavarians came they pronounced it Einbock with their accents. "A goat?" the northerner taunted them. "Goat," the Bavarians agreed, taking the taunt and making it a mark of pride. That's why bock beers often incorporate a goat into the label!

The SF Bay Area and much of Northern California have been getting soaked with rain this weekend. There are a variety of names used to describe the weather phenomena at play: La Niña, Atmospheric River, and Bomb Cycle. What's in a name?



So, all three of these are happening at the same time in California right now, bringing us heavy rain and high winds. While we desperately need rain to replenish drought stricken reservoirs and groundwater tables the amount of rain we're getting all at once has oversaturated the ground, causing flash floods and slides. And the wind's a hazard, too.

Near where I live the weather has been relatively mild. We've had 1-2 inches of rain in the past 24 hours plus occasionally gusty winds. Elsewhere in the Bay Area rainfall has been 4 inches, 5 inches, up to 10+ inches in some places. And winds have been fierce enough to topple trees, knock out power lines, and flip over trucks on highways.

Update: I posted an explainer on how atmospheric rivers work.