THE MAN FROM LA MANCHA

Here is something you almost certainly did not know.  Pascale Christine Baeriswyl of Switzerland is now President of the United Nations Security Council.  Do you know who she replaced?  Vasily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the UN.  Somehow, the World survived his month in office.  Another thing you did not know.  This position changes monthly.  

Surely you must know that the ninth Secretary-General of the UN, who took office in 2017, is Antonio Guterres of Portugal.  But if this position is for 5 years, why is he still in office?  Because you can get a second term.  So he's good until the end of 2026.

Next, a graphic from the morning New York Times.  The previous Great Recession was from December 2007 to June 2009. The U.S. GDP did not recover until the third quarter of 2011.  Unemployment rose to 10% in October of 2009 and took until May of 2016 to drop back to 4.7%.  The NYT article nowhere hints about any coming 2008 recession, but....

I woke up this morning to the final scene from the 1933 film, The Adventures of Don Quixote, which depicted life during the Spanish Inquisition.  Of course I'm familiar with the whole story, but as I thought about the subject, the music and everything else, my mind could not remember any real details.  So I decided to focus this nostalgic Tuesday on the subject.

The 1933 film:

• Was based on what is considered to be the first true novel, by Miguel de Cervantes, and released in two parts, 1605 and 1615.  While he has been touted as the greatest Spanish writer, he only knew poverty, obscurity and worse, for he was captured by Barbary pirates in 1575, and after five years in captivity, was ransomed.  Most of his works never were found.  The story well reflected his life.  He died in 1616, the day before William Shakespeare.
• 
  Movie was made in three versions, French, English and German, starring the great Russian operatic singer Feodor Chaliapin.  To feature his voice, four songs were commissioned for the soundtrack.
• There are more than a dozen You Tube links, most of them the full movie.  The English one is only 55 minutes long, while the French with Spanish subtitles is 1 hour and 21 minutes long.  Why?  Don't know.
• The film lost so much money that Nelson Films collapsed.

I tried to count how many film variations there were, but failed.  Here is a research article by J.A. Garrido of all the Don Quixote films only from 2005-2015, and he found 68 productions across 20 countries, led by the USA with 22 shows and Spain with 17.  (https://www.degruyter.com >culture-2017-0018>pdf)  Walt Disney attempted to animate the show in 1940, 1946, 1951, and into the 1990's, but couldn't.

Yet another failure.  Don Quixote is also the unfinished film project of Orson Welles.  He worked on it from 1955, almost completed it in 1975, but died in 1985.  He wanted Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the modern age.  First used Mischa Auer as DQ and Akim Tamiroff as SP.  CBS was unhappy and the project got shelved.  Welles then got $25,000 from Frank Sinatra to make a black-and-white feature.  

Again, nothing good happened.  There were several attempts to package a real product since then.  There is a nearly two-hour  black and white film in You Tube.

The best is said to be the 1957 Russian version, the first color production.  Yet, Rotten Tomatoes gave 43/39 scores.  Said:

This assemblage of Welles' footage by Jess Franco, from 1992, is crude, gappy, and slapdash, but it hardly matters: the pathos of Welles's thinly veiled self-portrait is almost unbearable.

March 11, 2013 | Full Review…

But, whoops, Rotten Tomatoes screwed up.  They are reviewing one of those Orson Welles re-hashes mentioned in the paragraph above.  I can't seem to find much on the 1957 Russian version.

The 1965 broadway musical, Man of La Mancha, (this is the full 143-minute original Broadway show) followed a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion.  This story is not faithful to the original novel.  Won five Tony Awards, including best musical.  Original Cervantes/Don Quixote was to be Rex Harrrison, but he was too busy with My Fair Lady.  Instead, Richard Kiley won a Tony.  During the first production, the C/DQ role was also played by José Ferrer, Hall Holbrook and Lloyd Bridges.  Has been revived four times, but the last one was in 2002, so should be back soon, although a London West End production in 2019 starred Kelsey Grammar as C/DQ.  National tours starred Hal Linden and Robert Goulet.  A studio recording was released in 1996 with Placido Domingo as DQ and Mandy Patinkin as SP.

The movie I most identified with was the 1972 Man of La Mancha, with Peter O'Toole as C/DQ, voice dubbed by Simon Gilbert, James Coco as Sancho Panza and Sophia Loren as Dulcinea/Aldonza.  Shot in Rome.  It was a troubled production with a range of directors and screenwriters.  Rotten Tomatoes gave 47/71 scores.

The Impossible Dream has long been my theme song, as the final portion of this posting indicates.  The movie was released just a few years before I spent some time at the NASA Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, soon followed by my stint at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, then on to the U.S. Senate to draft the original version of the hydrogen legislation.  

Here is Jim Nabors as Gomer Pyle shocking the TV viewing world in 1967 with his rendition on the night this episode played.  Led to his singing career.  Might have been the best ever, although Jack Jones hit #1 on the Adult Billboard Chart in 1966, Robert Goulet in 1967, Placido Domingo in 1996, hundreds of others, and more recently, Jackie Evancho (see her growing older and older), Susan Boyle (with lyrics) and Josh Groban in 2020.

There was a 2-hour TV Don Quixote in 2000 starring John Lithgow as DQ and Bob Hoskins as SP, with Vanessa Williams as Dulcinea.  However, Rotten Tomatoes audiences gave it a 37 score.

Terry Gilliam produced the 2002 documentary, Lost in La Mancha.  He had attempted this effort as early as 1991, but it took him more than two decades to succeed...and he failed.  Yes, there was this documentary, but he protested.  Jeff Bridges was narrator and Johnny Depp played Don Quixote.  Rotten Tomatoes gave 94/77 scores.  

16 years later Gilliam followed through with The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, with Adam Driver, and Jonathan Pryce as Don Quixote, which only got 66/60 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.  It's not over....yet. 

In 2019 came He Dreams of Giants, a follow-up to the 2002 documentary.  This one starred Terry Gilliam, Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce.  Rotten Tomatoes:  reviewers gave a 90% rating.  No audience score.  Why?  This trio would make a fine triple-bill one night.

Finally, in 2019, The True Don Quixote, directed by Chris Poche, which got a 94 audience rating from Rotten Tomatoes, the highest of them all.  Tim Blake Nelson is DQ and Jacob Batalon is SP.  Filmed in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, it is a modern-day adaptation.

So why spend all this time on a delusional paranoid?  In a way, Don Quixote reminds me of me.  From a 2015 blog:

Why have I always related to the Man from La Mancha?  For one, like him, I have spent much of my life tilting at windmills.  I actually was chairman of the Wind Energy Division of the American Solar Energy Society just around the time the movie was produced.  The song, The Impossible Dream, has driven me to do what I have accomplished, which is not much, because everything of substance I try is almost impossible to do. 

Eight years ago I also posted on THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM IS 50 YEARS OLD.  To quote:

• 
  I used the caricature of Don Quixote on the cover of my proposal to NASA to build PAT (Planetary Abstracting Trinterferometer), and called the project, To See the Impossible Dream.  Bad choice, for the reviewers thought I was not being serious enough. 

During the final few months of 2020 I counted down my 100 favorite songs. I daily started at #100 and worked my way down to #1.  While Impossible Dream, was only #63, it represents the story of my life.

My problem is that my impossible dreams have thus far been impossible to engineer into reality:

• Coffee that TASTES as good as it smells.
• Rainbow Pearls
• Hawaiian Onsen
• Blue Revolution
• Direct methanol fuel cell
• Hydrogen economy

However, someday, someone will gain fame and wealth with those dreams of mine.  Why not you?

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HOW WAS OUR 53-DAY SEABOURN ODYSSEY CRUISE?

So how was our Seabourn Odyssey 53-day cruise?  Depends on who you ask.  My companion loved the journey, and made a hold for a future trip with Seabourn.  I thought it was mostly fine, but a bit too long.  The fantasy baseball season began a month ago and my three teams started poorly.  However, two are now in first place and the third in second, so can't really complain.   The following are mostly my views.

A huge surprise is my weight.  

• After we returned to Honolulu, went shopping at Marukai to purchase some o-toro sashimi for the 15 Craigside-supplied Pork Tofu for dinner and other items to enhance in-house meals, I added a large bento of curry rice/garlic chicken, with a goodly amount of fat-inducing macaroni-mayonnaise salad.  
• I thought this would be my last splurge before re-going on a diet.  I weighed 152-155 pounds the week I left Honolulu for Sydney nearly two months ago. 
• After that lunch with beer, I weighed myself, and had to repeat it three times.  For all that I ate and drank on the cruise, and I truly overdid it, my weight was 150.6 pounds.
• Probably was the sleeping, and I did eat less the past week because of some belching.  I hardly had any breakfast, except for the first and final mornings.
• We don't talk about her weight.  But maybe she too was surprised.

Okay, for the more important matter about the cruise.  I'll start with some negatives.

• It was too long.
• The ship had a somewhat serious covid outbreak.  We thus needed to significantly reduce activities. 
• We hardly made any friends for fear of covid.
• We even stopped going on tours the past few weeks.  Mask-wearing made life not so comfortable.

• 
  I got tired of caviar, escargots, meat and fish of all kinds, salads, scotch, gin, vodka, champagne.........name it.
• The Japanese food was not Japanese food.  Interesting that the staff from India said the India food did not remotely resemble what they eat back home.

• 
  Thomas Keller's The Grill was a disappointment.  Plus, the outbreak ruined the environment.
• All the Pacific islands look about the same, but smaller than Hawaii.
• Our in-room films were plentiful, and not exactly the best.  Watched too many bad ones.  The TV was too small.
• Why didn't we go out and party, you say?  Well, the outbreak, for one.  It is also dangerous to dance on a moving ship.
• 
  The shower was too small and I kept hitting my elbow on something.  The bathtub was hard to enter and leave.  The toilet flush wakes up anyone trying to sleep in the room.  Looks like most cruise lines are now using this type.  They need to find a way to to make it ten times quieter.
• I spent too much time on this blog.
• There was almost no way to exercise.  The moving ship, the danger of using the wellness center, any excuse I could find.  I did walk and dance in place in our cabin to music to pad my pedometer number.  But this was not real exercise.
• We slept too much.

The positives far overwhelmed the above.

• We could sleep a lot.
• We did not catch covid.
• We were generally healthy.  I did not feel any symptom of sea sickness.
• The service was mostly terrific.  Better than the Regent Seven Seas Explorer.  There are a dozen Seabourn staffers we know well, including their names.  I don't recall one on the Explorer.

• 
  The food was excellent.  Yes, I tired of everything, but, certainly better than compared to 15 Craigside, where I live.  We did miss the local and oriental food.
• The drink as much as you want for free atmosphere was nice, but dangerous, and after a while, I became more sensible.  I wouldn't be surprised if we reached 20 drinks/day in the early period, which dropped to maybe 6/day the final weeks (at least for me).  Still a lot more than the one/day recommended by health authorities for seniors. 
• 
  We left as two people and returned as one.  Because of the outbreak, we were together just about 24 hours/day, and got along fine.
• WiFi was free and almost universal.  The technology has significantly increased since my last major cruise.  Save for only one day around the equator, almost everything was accessible.  For an extra $700 we could use up to 4 devices/person, but also access to links like You Tube, Netflix, etc.  Those are not worth that amount of money.

• 
  The top three activities:
• Airplane tour of the Great Barrier Reef.
• Whales and Rainbows at sunset from our veranda moored off Lahaina.
• There are probably ten other #3s.
• Our front port cabin was perfect.  We got most of the best views (relative to the starboard side), and no vibration (compared to aft rooms).
• We very much enjoyed.

• 
  High tea at 4PM, scones with clotted cream and about ten other types of edibles.  Also added a glass of cognac or scotch on rocks.  Well, perhaps not good for added weight and ruining dinner.

• 
  Sailaways when we departed a port.  Veranda caviar with vodka and other goodies added to the enjoyment.  They also have several The Patio around the pool parties with great entertainment.  We found a pod to enjoy all this.  It was always available because no one else chose to use the two available.  Why I can't imagine.
• 
  Brought two pipes and several cigars.  However, the ship allowed you only to smoke them at one corner of an outside spot away from people.  There was a conspiracy to prevent me from smoking, I finally did, but only once.
• We did like those several delivered dinners in our cabin and watched a film.  A few were excellent.
• The weather was absolutely perfect.  Rare rains, decent seas and no threatening cyclones.

• 
  While not the Seabourn Odyssey, I should add Sydney as a big plus.  Our Marriott near the harbor was perfect for walking around the city.  We also found a Sparkling Shiraz that met what I have long wanted.  A heavy-bodied red with bubbles.  Adelaide was also a surprisingly livable city.
• I took around 2000 photos, and will show the best 100 at our next 15 Craigside travel presentation.  Here are a few of them in chronological order, starting with a shot of Sydney as our Qantas flight was about to land.  The sun was just about to set and I was positioned just perfectly for this shot showing the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

This photo was crucial, as we had to have a positive covid test within 48 hours of boarding using Zoom so Seabourn's representative could see what we were doing.  We had to do this from our hotel room in Sydney.  Two potential problems.  I'm terrible at linking with Zoom.  Two, if we tested positive.  We'd have to come home, and pay again to do this.

Sydney Opera House from the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Departing Sydney on the Seabourn Odyssey at sunset.

Celebrated a birthday.

First formal night.

A koala.

Caviar, vodka and Sparkling Shiraz on our veranda, with salmon.

Great Barrier Reef.

An interesting weather pattern in Townsville.

Goonies.

A typical lunch. 

I should show you one photo of the Seabourn Odyssey.  Here in Papeete.

We finally got a sashimi plate served towards the end of our cruise.

Not much of a photo, but this was a whale from our veranda in Lahaina.

Then a short while later a double rainbow.

Many cruise lines serve at their final dinner Baked Alaska, and do a parade with this dessert.  On the Seabourn Odyssey was just a large one which was served to you.

So that ended our 53-day Seabourn Odyssey cruise.  I'm home, happy and will look forward to our next cruise, which will probably be on the Diamond Princess in the Fall around Japan to complement two weeks on Japan Rail Pass to watch the change in colors.  We sort of did this in 2019.  While we especially like this ship because it is built for Japan (the Japanese food is good, and there is a karaoke bar, etc.), a month after we left the ship in Yokohama a passenger from Hong Kong kick-started the COVID-19 pandemic by boarding the Diamond Princess.  Four years later, surely must be safe by now.

Yesterday for dinner at home I had a 15 Craigside Pork Tofu, enhance by first frying some wagyu fat, and topping with an egg, plus O-toro sashimi, with cold beer and hot sake.

This morning when I woke up Honolulu was again sparkling.  The cruise terminal is located just to the right of this photo.  Of course the Odyssey had left....for Vancouver.

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