With Subtitles

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Windwalker, an odd choice, given that it was as far from a children's movie as a movie could be -- the tagline read, He walked the winds of love and death -- and now he must walk for all eternity! My parents never subjected me to Disney movies, a regular staple for all the children I know, thanks to the miracle of DVD players. Given what little I know of the plots now, I'm thankful for this void in my youth -- The Little Mermaid in particular upsets me to no end -- give up your voice and your prince will come?! Give me the heartbreak of any Peanut's special (one caveat -- do not watch Come Home, Snoopy when you are depressed; it can tip you over to suicidally depressed) over that crap any day. But, back to the man who roams. Windwalker, a dead Native American medicine man, had to return to the earth to save his tribe. The film contained only a few voice-overs in English; the movie is entirely in the Cheyenne and Crow Native American languages with subtitles.

It's hard to imagine my attention span at nine was all that smoking hot, but I loved the atmosphere of the movies, even the dinky theater in Mineral Wells, the size of a really big postage stamp, one of the pretty ones that the postal clerk has to dig out of the bottom of the drawer, embittering the rest of the long line that wishes you would just buy the flag stamps and be done with it. Don't remember much about the plot except that it involved a lot of walking around bitterly in cold weather, good preparation for Detroit, now that I think about it. I love that my first theater movie contained subtitles -- it makes me sound a whole lot smarter than I am, a myth that could be punctured quickly by the telling of my first rated-R movie that I snuck into -- Zapped, starring that acting genius Scott Baio. This all happened in the same theater. For a couple of hours, the outside world could be kept at bay, and it didn't matter if you could understand what was happening all the time or not.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Everything in this story is true." William J. Cobb, "Marathon"

Cocktail Hour

Drinking music suggestion: James Brown, Say It Loud and Live, Live in Dallas

Benedictions and Maledictions

Halloween recipe book -- Avon's Best Halloween Recipes (yes, leave it to me to suggest a make-up company's cookbook, but the recipes are very cute and mostly dessert recipes)