Michael Ampersant

Jan 23, 2020

Portugal (23) -- Returning to France

Chang shot this picture this morning in the Heineken Bar of Terminal II of Lisbon airport:

(The lower right quadrant is not photo-shopped, it's just a TV screen)

The house-hunt failed, at least in the sense that we didn't find the ideal place; we'll try again in March.

(Chang asks me to add that we didn't actually drink Heineken at this bar at 7 AM; we had pretty, yet overpriced Cappucini instead)

Jan 21, 2020

Portugal (22) -- this afternoon

The walk to the Praia do Norte (the northern beach -- that's where the big waves happen) takes us past a deer sanctuary:

Jan 19, 2020

Portugal (21) -- This afternoon, on the beach

Jan 17, 2020

Portugal (20)

A rainy day on the beach of Nazaré (still house-hunting):

Picture, as always, by Chang

Jan 12, 2020

Nazaré again -- Portugal (19)

We've just arrived in Nazaré, Portugal, for a glass of Sangria and a house-hunt. Wish us good luck. Picture taken on the patio of our favourite beach haunt, the Inn Bar.

Hitlist

https://joselito28.tumblr.com/post/190209137652

Jan 5, 2020

Star Wars Episode IX -- Review

We're still living in Le Trayas, 19 kilometers from Cannes, or 19 quilometros, as they say in Portugal, whereto we are planning to relocate. We kept a Netflix subscription for three or four months last year, during which we watched ONE movie. So we canceled Netflix and decided to resume our occasional excursions to Cannes, where the theaters may show movies in English. And yesterday we went to see the latest Star Wars movie...uh, what was the title..."The Rise of Skywalker" (yes).

This is the Esterel, seen from Cannes, the "mountain" range where we live

I don't quite remember, but this may have been my first time to walk out of a movie before it ended. I had read the reviews, which were so-so, but not devastating.
You watch this movie like you're reading a recipe...
-- "Make sure to satisfy all demographics that count, and don't forget the Marsians and all the other good people of the galaxy;"
-- "Make sure to ignore the established laws of physics, because hard-working American Families, including Donald Trump's, don't care" (so we have this obnoxious space travel going on all the time, and it's particularly grating that we are informed that they travel at the speed of light (meaning, if they are crisscrossing a serious galaxy, that they would still need hundreds or thousands of years to get anywhere));

We could serve as a Star Wars location, save for the beach umbrella

-- "Make sure to separate GOOD from EVIL."
-- "Don't offend anybody," meaning that SELF-HELP is the only permissible ideology/religion left to support the GOOD GUYS. And so we are constantly treated to blatant falsehoods such as 'You can do anything, if you want,' or 'Good people will fight, if we need them,' or 'The force will be with you, always,' or 'Was this review helpful?'
-- (as a lemma to the last ingredient:) "Don't use swear words, or any such thing. And...sex is out of the question, unless it happened light years ago between Harrison Ford and Princess Leia."

"Uuhm"

So, we walked out. It was Chang, partner and photographer, who noted that I was constantly looking at my watch, and suggested that we'd leave.
The special effects are trying to be more special than any previous special effects, and this race is going on now for a hundred years. As this movie shows, there are special limits. We liked the special waves, though (link), because the place we are moving to in Portugal has the highest surfable waves on the planet:

Nazaré, on November 22, 2018

Have a look at the link. Nazaré's waves are better.

Dec 17, 2019

You'll love this

Here, fresh from The Onion:

GLEN FALLS, NY—--Revealing that her lousy peers’ advice had been invaluable, aspiring novelist Alicia Duncan confirmed Tuesday that the writer’s retreat she’s attending provides a great opportunity to receive critical feedback from other nobodies. “It’s been incredible to spend the week getting diverse perspectives on my memoir from a bunch of fresh MFA graduates and bored retirees, none of whom have ever been published,” said Duncan, adding that she enjoyed attending daily workshops about how to get a literary agent taught by a college professor whose only published book is about how to get a literary agent. “The $1,500 tuition is pretty steep, but it’s worth it for all the networking I’ve been able to do with people who have no industry connections and cannot help me. Every day we read our work aloud and take turns talking out our asses before sitting in on lectures from people who have barely sold 10,000 copies in their whole careers. They helped me figure out how to make my characters more two-dimensional and the best way to build out my story arc so it’s more convoluted.” Duncan added that she was eager to take all the inane, toothless critiques she’d received and turn them into something unreadable.

Dec 15, 2019

Green Eyes: One-liners on line

Cool, folks, cool. A friend alerted us to a link on Meme to our Green Eyes franchise. It has quotes from the two books, like: "That was quick but profound; more profound than a quickie":

There are more quotes. Here, "classical-drama quotes" (we are always about everything):

"Classical drama depends crucially on people not having cell phones."

Give it a try.

The Lambda Literary Award finalist