The Onota Film Festival, Take 2

It’s been a good three weeks since I attended the Oneota Film Festival, and I’m still not entirely sure how to write about it. Part of this is because I covered the Oneota Film Festival back when I first started this blog and there was a lot to write about. Now, I feel like I’ve run the gamut, and the things I see are starting to get less and less important. Do I write about the historical mill when a lot of towns have a similar sight? Do I stick with the unique restaurants? Or do I simply have to devote more time on the weekends to exploring the area to find something new to write about? On the other hand, the last time I went to the film festival it was as an outside observer, emphasis on “outside.” So it seemed appropriate to go this year and experience as much of the event as I could. 

One of the things I like about the film festival is that it’s held at Luther College in Decorah. I’ve written about the college, but never much about the events there. This is because the college mostly shuts down on the weekend. For someone who went to a Big 10 school in a verifiable city, this can be hard for me to wrap my mind around. Go to Luther College’s campus on the weekend, and you will see a couple of students out walking around, but if you go in the afternoon and there doesn’t happen to be, say, a home football game, then you could be forgiven for thinking everyone in the college had gone home for the weekend. The bottom line is that Luther College is a closed system to me, and I would love to be able to get inside just a little bit to see if there are any similarities to the university I attended. 

The film festival provided an excellent opportunity to get inside Luther College. Mostly because it took place in the morning and early afternoon. Partially because if there’s one universal truth, it is that if an event like a film festival is big enough to involve at least two buildings on a college campus, the energy seems to spread across the rest of the campus, infecting students and nearby residents with its energy. People want to see what is going on, or they’re inspired to get out and do something meaningful to them. Of course, when I was in college and, say, a football game was drawing everyone to the stadium, that was my cue to take off for either the local bookstore or gaming store and spend the next couple of hours seeing what wonders were available. Either that or spend it in bed next to a girlfriend, enjoying the fact that we were having our own moment while the rest of the world marched on. 

So the Luther campus was busy that morning. There were more than a few students crossing between buildings, and a lot more people, dressed in decidedly not-student clothing such as khakis, loafers, flats, overcoats, sport coats and professional-style dresses in appropriately dark colors. I joined the crowd, went to the admissions booth, and prepared to pay the entrance fee, which was nonexistent. This was my first surprise. This is not a small event; the film festival lasts from Friday to Sunday. They have about 20 independent movies showing, plus a question-and-answer session with some of the filmmakers. Perhaps it isn’t the Cannes or Sundance, but it is a legitimate film festival. That the organization charges nothing is both ludicrous and wonderful, and if you don’t feel the urge to donate at least a couple dollars after being told this entertainment is available for nothing…well, let’s be honest, you may want to see if the movies are your cup of tea. 

See, most of the movies are documentaries, documentaries with a definite liberal slant. I watched a documentary on women and the gun culture in America, which was very informative and remarkably even-handed, as well as a documentary about wounded veterans being taken to Montana to fly fish as a type of therapy for the wounds, mental and physical, they sustained while in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others include a documentary on why the fight to eliminate “entitlements” is wrongheaded, a documentary about the pollution of the Ganges River in India, documentaries on the environment, unemployment, and one about people living in Detroit now, trying to make their way in a city that is constantly on the edge of failing, if it hasn’t tipped over already. I watched part of that too, having lived in Michigan most of my life. 

To be honest, the documentaries were good, although they lacked that smooth coat of polish professional documentaries have. This actually served to make most of the movies better. The lack of polish let the filmmakers’ passion shine through, and some of the best moments were where subjects would just talk for a few minutes. No sound bites, no quick camera shots to bits of film that would make the sound bite more memorable, no music in the background—just someone talking, pouring their heart out to the camera in a way reality TV producers wish they could repeat. 

Would I recommend the Oneota Film Festival to anyone else? Yes, although I’d warn people that these are films with a message, and you might not always want to see what they have to say. If you’re in the mood for, say, Miss Congeniality 3 or the latest entry in the Die Hard franchise, then these are not the films for you. It’s hard to dismiss these films, though. An obvious amount of time and effort has gone into each of them, and I can honestly say I would recommend everyone see them. 

I’m not sure where Decorah got the idea for a film festival, or how they’ve kept it going for so long, but I really enjoyed it. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to go again.

A Post About Sundays

  For the first time in a while, I don’t have anything to write about. Not that this is a bad thing, and not that I’ve finally run out of topics, but it’s Monday evening and I’ve finished exercising and at this point nothing interests me quite as much as lying on the futon or my bed and going to sleep.  Still, the blog must have its entry. So what I’ve decided to write about is a uniquely Midwestern topic—Sunday.

For me, Sundays are not bad. I wake up fairly early, drive an hour to Rochester, Minnesota to practice Kendo for an hour and a half at the YMCA, stagger out at the end, and either have lunch or take in a movie at Rochester’s southernmost mega cinema, then drive back to Cresco and enjoy a Sunday afternoon. It’s rather peaceful, with the exception of the hour and a half of martial arts practice.

The Midwest seems to feel the same way about Sundays, northeast Iowa in particular. Very few shops are open in Cresco and Decorah on Sunday. The chain stores are open, yes, and they close up respectably early on Sunday, but the town grocery store is closed on Sunday. It’s a little jarring if you discover you’re out of, say, chicken for your chicken salad sandwich and decide to make a quick grocery run. The nearest place that resembles a grocery store would be the Wal-Mart in Decorah, about a half-hour away. I don’t mind this, per se—going into a Wal-Mart is the easiest way to feel like you’re in a bigger town than you actually are, and I highly recommend walking through one if you get homesick for your city. Still, the difference between a two-block walk and a half-hour drive is about an hour’s difference. Besides, once I go into a Wal-Mart after driving a half-hour to get there, I feel the need to actually buy some things to justify driving half an hour to get there. I say this to offer a partial explanation for why, in one trip, I bought Romeo Must Die from the five dollar movie bin.

I can’t complain too much about the towns closing on Sundays, though, even though it can be aggravating to have the newest Decorah bookstore always be closed on Sundays, when you most feel like taking the time to walk into a bookstore and browse. Having the town close down, though, gives a sense of peace that urban areas have to work harder to obtain. When you walk the streets of Rochester on a Sunday, for instance, you see people walking with purpose, from one place to another. If you go into Rochester’s mall, you’ll see thousands of people all hurrying to get their shopping in, their meals eaten and the mall’s selected entertainment of the month experienced before the weekend ends. It’s entertaining to see how orderly hectic a mall is on the weekend, but only if you are not a part of it.

Walking down Decorah’s main street, though, is much more relaxing. You have some people parked on the street and you do meet a few people, but they aren’t hurrying anywhere. They’re strolling, which is becoming a lost art not even practiced by parents pushing strollers. These people are going somewhere, and they do feel the need to get to their destination. It doesn’t control them, however. They don’t have a reservation they need to guard like lions guard their kill on the veldt. They don’t place more value on the destination than the journey. Instead, they’re enjoying the walk, looking at other people and smiling at some of the more standalone shops on the main street. You can enjoy yourself walking in Decorah. When you get to Rochester, you just need to be at your destination. Which is a shame, as I think Rochester could do with more people who strolled through it.

Actually, the Mayo Clinic is a fine place for strolling. If you happen to walk through it during the day, you’ll see several people who are patients there, or they have people they know who are patients, and when you are in either group, you have to wait. Wait for tests, wait for the diagnosis, wait for the cure to work or wait to die. The waiting can drive you insane if you aren’t careful, and the people at the Mayo Clinic seem to have recognized this. This is why the hallways are lined with art and sculpture, from abstract streaks of paint on twenty-foot tall canvases to intricately-carved sculptures of children on dolphins. The lobbies even have grand pianos that invite anyone to play, and several classically-trained pianists come along in a week, playing a concerto. Occasionally, they bring friends with other instruments, and the melody lingers in the hallways, encouraging people to continue strolling, until the waiting is done. As a visitor it can be quite pleasant.

I’m not sure which state I prefer.  I love strolling, and I think it’s a shame that people don’t stroll more often.  I do, however, love sitting in a public square and watching people hurry to and fro, leaving somewhere on their way to somewhere else. For me, it’s a calming, comforting feeling, that there are thousands of happy people in this area, busy living their lives and going to someplace that, hopefully, will fulfill them somehow, even if it’s just to the drugstore to buy a soda.

The Magpie—it’s open

Over the course of the weekend, Andy and I ate at two nice restaurants. The first one we encountered was the Magpie.

The Magpie is a coffeehouse/deli that caters to students from the nearby Luther College. It goes out of its way to have an informal atmosphere, from the chalk-drawn menus to the social area in back where you can sit on couches, play board games and read magazines. It takes me back to my college days, when coffee houses were really starting to come into their own, and the stores were trying to figure out the right combination of intellectual appeal and informality to hit the current college demographic.

The menu, though, reads less like a coffeehouse menu and more like the menu you’d see at an upscale deli. They offer mostly sandwiches, but sandwiches with seven or eight ingredients, the type of ingredients that are so good they have to tell you about how they are cooked on the menu. You know, things like slow-roasted chicken, carmelized onions, chipotle mayonnaise, jalapeno butter, ciabatta roll, Panini bread, that sort of thing. If your mouth hasn’t watered at least a little bit on hearing those ingredients, you might want to call a doctor or a psychologist. Just sayin’.  They also offer some really unique side dishes, like potato salad or macaroni salad. Personally, I loved the iced tea, which was clearly brewed from some good tea leaves. Keep your Lipton’s Iced Tea that gets dispensed at the local soda machine. The iced tea at the Magpie has that very slight bite of bitterness that separates the merely okay teas from the very good teas.

Personally, though, I think the best feature about the Magpie is that it’s open after regular lunch hours. Andy and I had finished touring the Bily Clock Museum and driving around Spillville. I wanted to take Andy to a nice restaurant for a late lunch, since I’d told him about the plethora of nice restaurants in Decorah. We parked the car around 3 pm, then walked down a block or two until we got to the Rubaiyat, which closed down at 1:30, to open again around 5:00. Fine, I thought. They’re a fancy restaurant, they can do this. So we went across the street to another nice restaurant, which was similarly closed. Also fine, I thought. They’re also a nice restaurant, they probably only serve important people who know when to eat lunch and dinner, not two anarchists who think they can dine out at any point in the day it suits them.

I was not beat yet. I would take Andy to the backup plan of my backup plan, the La Rana bistro. We would go there, Andy would be suitably impressed by the menu, and we’d both marvel at how the restaurant was laid out, how it was built, and why the proprietor seemed so much like a Tom.

As we walked toward the La Rana, I could see the restaurant’ s door open. This was a good sign. I’m not ashamed to admit I smiled in triumph as I went in, following Andy, and saw a woman with short red hair and glasses, wiping down the bar. She looked up, and Andy asked, rather sarcastically, if they were open for business. At which point the waitress, either naturally or intentionally missing the sarcasm, apologized to us and said the La Rana was not in fact serving lunch or dinner, but it was offering drinks. Not wanting to drink our lunch, we decided to head to someplace that was actually serving food. One block over, we found the Magpie.

I am very happy to say Andy and I enjoyed the sandwiches we ordered, and the drinks were very good as well (coffee and iced tea, respectively). There wasn’t much in the way of waitresses, but we did have a very nice barista who refilled our drinks whenever we took them up. Seeing as how the distance from our table to the counter could be reached in about three paces, it wasn’t much of a hassle.  I have talked previously about having a cute woman to bring me lunch. A cute girl who will refill your iced tea? You know, I can live with that.

Preen, Eagle, Preen!

(Apologies to Mur Lafferty (http://murverse.com/) for the title)

One of the current hot Internet obsessions is a webcam showing a bald eagle family. Tune into http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles , and you too will see a bald eagle family. Mostly, though, you will be seeing the mother, with a few appearances by the father as he literally brings home the bacon, or the bald eagle equivalent thereof. If you happen to be a member of PETA, I’d recommend not watching because you’ll be horrified to see a mother eagle cheerfully ripping apart a rabbit or salmon and feeding chunks of it to her babies. Bald eagles are not known for their vegetarian diets.

I was introduced to this by a coworker, because the bald eagles are located in none other than Decorah. I’m not entirely sure where in Decorah, although it wouldn’t be hard to find out. However, it’s more fun watching the eagles through a webcam. First, let’s be honest, the weather is still simply too cold for all but the most die-hard bird watchers to really want to be outdoors watching for an hour. Second, if you were to watch these eagles in real life, you’d only be getting a view from the ground, which would rob you of some of the more interesting moments. You could get closer, but then you’d risk becoming a participant. Then again, if you were to watch in real life you wouldn’t have the occasional commercial for genuine American Eagle Coins at the bottom of the screen, or whatever else Google thinks is relevant to show you. (Another one—Econo Lodge Eagle Nest. I can understand being so moved by watching these bald eagles that I’d immediately invest in a set of collector coins that almost have something to do with the occasion, but I don’t think I’d ever feel so moved by watching these bald eagles that I’d immediately want to stay in a motel.)

So what do these bald eagles do? Mostly they take care of their babies. Sometimes they preen, other times they maintain their nest. I missed the hatching, which took place over three days. I missed the last one, even though I knew it was happening soon, because I had to get a workout in. There’s something symbolic about missing the hatching of a bald eagle on a webcam while you’re busy working out, but I’m not sure what it is.

Let’s get back to the nest, though. It is, like the eagles themselves, deceptively small-looking.  I’m always amazed when I see how big the eagles are up close. The smallest bald eagle is at least two feet long from head to tail, while the larger ones are over three feet long. Hold out your arm. Unless you’re a professional basketball player, a bald eagle is about that long. That’s frigging huge, by the way. Their wingspan is between 66 and 96 inches. Sixty inches is five feet, by the way. Ninety-six inches is eight feet. So their wingspan is as big, if not bigger, than a human being.  For a bird that big, you can imagine they have even bigger nests. The Decorah bald eagle nest has been used to hatch eggs for the past three years now, and it is estimated to weigh about a ton. That is a lot of straw and branches. Another quick Wikipedia look says that the average nest can get to be 13 feet deep and 8.2 feet wide.  I still can’t wrap my mind around the concept of bald eagles having a nest that big. It doesn’t help that the nest and the eagles themselves don’t look that big, at least not without something for comparison.

Another thing that strikes me each time I look at these bald eagles is how majestic and dignified the mom and dad look. The babies, not so much, but then again babies tend more toward being cute than dignified. The adults, though, there’s something about their face that says, “No matter what happens in this life, I will not only face it head on, but I will succeed.”  No wonder we made this bird the symbol of the United States. I remember that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the symbol of the United States at one time. He also thought the rattlesnake would be good too, but let’s ignore that for now. Franklin liked the fact that the turkey was more seemingly courageous than the bald eagle, who he considered cowardly. The problem is that the turkey doesn’t have any of the dignity the bald eagle possesses. I think ol’ Ben might have had more insight than he let on, though, when he suggested the turkey as our national symbol. The turkey looks kind of unkempt, and while he can look good if he just takes the time to put his plumage up, usually he goes around with his unkempt beard, looking for all the world like he just woke up from a monster rave the night before. He also struts when he walks, as if to say, “Yeah, you want some of this, don’t you?” The turkey is a middle-class and low-class bird, one that doesn’t really do dignity. In other words, it represents most Americans perfectly. The bald eagle is the image of America that we want to present to the rest of the world and, indeed, what we would like to be. The turkey is what we actually are. If I had been one of the founding fathers, I’d have gone with the bald eagle too.

First Post

Bill Bryson is a darned fine writer. He’s also the inspiration for this blog, so if you don’t like what you see, blame him. The second inspiration is my history with small towns.

I grew up in a small rural town in Michigan whose population consisted of about 3,000 people. When I was in high school, kids used to talk about “cruising the town,” which took all of two minutes. Three, if they decided to hang out in the parking lot of the local supermarket. Still, I had fun. My dad is an avid outdoorsman, and so I learned all about hunting, fishing, camping, and how to enjoy myself just by going for a walk in the country. Of course, being one of those intellectual geeky types, I’d also go into the local library and check out a book or two. Or see if the local supermarket had any new comic books. And that was pretty much it.

By the time I’d graduated high school I was more than ready to leave. When I went to college I lived in an honest-to-god city, with multi-level buildings and sirens going past my dorm room at midnight and everything a city is supposed to have—including book stores and game stores, which have since become two of my favorite addictions. Not to mention I just like living in a city, having an apartment and being part of what writer Neal Stephenson called the biomass.

Now, however, I’m back in a small town. This is mostly due to my desire to make it as a writer. Unbeknownst to me, you have to either have a job while becoming a writer or starve gracefully until you’ve proven you can write and some company takes you on when you can successfully present the façade of a seasoned professional. I chose the latter route, and after only five or six years of living on ramen was picked up by a company located in northeastern Iowa. Here’s the irony, though—the job is in a small town. I’ve got two cities each an hour away from me and a pretty decent-sized town about a half-hour to the east, but for the most part my work and my free time is spent in a small town. I pretty much resigned myself to the crippling boredom that only a small town can provide unless I traveled extensively on the weekends. Then I read Bill Bryson’s excellent book, “The Lost Continent,” in which he explores several small Midwestern towns. He writes about them with humor, but also with the understanding that small towns are different somehow. The things that affect people here are different than in cities. They’re smaller and more personal. Benefit dinner posters get put up in the windows of the local fast food eateries—the electronic town sign posts church get-togethers and VFW happenings. You get to see some quirks that would make city dwellers cock an eyebrow. Small towns may also contain surprises, things you just wouldn’t expect or people you might not expect. After all, Brad Pitt had to come from somewhere, right?

So that’s the reason for this blog. My intention, barring any unforeseen circumstances, is to write about this area, explain what makes it unique. If nothing else, it beats sitting around all day watching reruns of Mythbusters.