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 Monday, December 26, 2022

In bed by 11, up @ 6:30, 2 cognacs, 1 Benedictine,  10 degrees, wind from the Northwest at 6, wind chill at -1.  Sunrise 7:22, sunset 4:22, 9 hours of daylight.  Cloudy morning, sunny afternoon forecast.

Late Christmas night had Geri and me engaged in long, animated discussions with Steve and Nikki about the state of the world, politics, health, cryptocurrency, a little religion, stuff we're supposed to steer clear of on holiday get-togethers but we never do since we all appear to be of one mind on these topics. I am always delighted by the range of not-so-general knowledge in Steve, actually in all our children.  Makes me feel simultaneously proud and a little dim-witted myself.  S&N were in bed before 10 and Geri and I emptied the first load from the dishwasher and loaded a second load before going to bed at the end of a very full, very heart-warming day, counting our blessings.  I had a bit of a boost when the others were leaving and Maribeth praised my paintings and drawings in the TV room walls and said the the next time she was here she wanted to see my other stuff in the basement so I gave her a quick tour of my crowded bedroom walls, especially drawings of her daughter and granddaughter.  I'm easily pleased with a little praise.😊

Portrait by Geri, Deirdre Keenan McChrystal, & Nancy Cannon many years ago during a dinner party in Shorewood.

Lilly and Buddy got along well over Steve & Nikki's overnight visit.  No hostility was shown by either, even when Buddy lay down on Lilly's mattress in the TV room.  I thought that the temporary usurpation of turf might provoke a problem, but Lilly was cool.

Bean Soup has been disappointing, a bit too al dente.  I've added some water and simmered it some more.🙏  Suspected problem: not soaking beans overnight, relying on 'quick soak' method described on packaging.  

Sunroom ceiling lights.  We had two burned-out bulbs in the recessed ceiling lights.  I can't deal with standing on a ladder or stool and looking up to replace them without getting dizzy and losing balance.  Geri insists she can do it and pooh-poohs my advice that it's not a great activity for a 78 and 1/2 year old lady to undertake.  Thank God, Steve came to the rescue - again.

Krystof Kieslowski, The Dekalog, Dekalog 1.  I started watching this series again after many years away.  Ebert suggests that Dekalog 1 ia the central story.  A man, his son Pavel, and his sister.  The man believes, as his sister puts it, in measurement, that everything can be measured.  He has his computer, his son has another. Each is into the computer as an instrument of understanding and measuring and controlling life, reality.  The son asks precocious questions: what is death?  what is left after death?  what is God?  The aunt believe in God.  The setting is in deep winter in Warsaw and features a mysterious nameless, identiyless character who appears wordlessly at times during the unfolding of the narrative, sitting outdoors near a pond, dressed very warmly, in front of a campfire.  Midstory, there is a chess match between a young woman chess whiz and perhaps a dozen contestants, including Pavel and his father.  Pavel calls the plays for his father which result in a victory over the chess whiz.  The aunt arranges for religious lessons from a nearby priest for Pavel, to which the father agrees.  The next scene shows the father's computer screen turned on and the father asks Pavel if he has turned it on to which Pavel answers 'no.'  The father addresses his computer as a 'colleague' and tells it to turn itself off, giving intimations of robotics and AI.  Then the father is shown lecturing a university class on language, linguistics, semantics and the untranslatable differences between all languages, each word, each phrase, each symbol carrying different cultural 'baggage.'  He imagines a supercomputer of sorts: "This device, which seems only to differentiate between zero and one, has not only a kind of intelligence, it selects.  That makes it capable of choice, perhaps even an act of will.  In my opinion, a properly programmed computer may have its own aesthetic preferences, a personality.." The son is present at the lecture, watching and listening to his father.  At home, the boy finds the milk bottle that has been delivered and left outside has frozen and broken the glass.  The father uses his computer to determine if the ice on the pond is safe for the son to skate on.  He also steps on the ice later to test it and then assures his son it is safe to skate on.  The next day, while the father is working at his desk, an ink bottle mysteriously breaks and ink spreads over his work and the book he is working from.  The next day, the father returns from work and discovers that Pavel is not at home.  He had gone skating on the pond relying on the father's computer-aided mathematical calculations, the ice broke under his weight, and he died.  The nighttime scene showing Pavel's body being recovered from the water as the father and aunt look on is devastating.  The father returns home where his computer has turned on with the message on its screen: "I am ready."  The father goes to the nearby church and kneels in front of a large icon of the Black Madonna, then pushes over the altar with its burning candles.  He puts his hand into a baptismal font or perhaps just a 'holy water' font and the water at its bottom is frozen.  He places the ice to his face, images of Pavel appear on the screen and the film ends.

First Commandment:  I am the Lord thy God... thou shalt not have other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.

There is nothing subtle about the message of this film about the limits of mathematics, science, and computer technology and the danger of over-reliance on these tools.  It's not clear to me what Kieslowski was suggesting about God. Nor is it clear to me who or what the mystery man with the campfire is supposed to be or represent.   In any case, the film, released in 1989 seems a bit prescient from our viewpoint today in the age of Siri, Alexa, Chat GPT, and Google Assistant.

Very quiet day today.  Lots of dishwashing, lots of resting from all the excitement (and for Geri, work) yesterday.  I did some touch-up work on The Handmaid's bonnet.