Veronika of Austria; Bible reading; time capsules

Cows are smarter than people think, according to the BBC.

Despite about 10,000 years of humans living alongside cattle, this is the first time scientists have documented a cow using a tool.

The researchers say their discovery shows that cows are smarter than we think and that other cows could develop similar skills, given the chance.

I’m too tired to work out the details, but I suspect that trouble lurks here for Hume’s account of testimonial knowledge.

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Bible reading report. I’m caught up reading Acts, but I’m three or four chapters behind in each of Genesis, Nehemiah, and Matthew. It’s not as dire as it sounds. Acts is by far the most thoroughly annotated of these books. The notes discuss every historical character (there’s a surprising amount of information about Sergius Paulus), every city that Paul visits, logistical reasons for travelers’ detours and delays, etc.

How, exactly, were worms involved in Herod Agrippa’s death? The possibilities are spelled out. (Bonus tidbit: the guy used to party with Caligula.)

Fascinating but long.

If I don’t begin reading before Abel wakes in the morning, I don’t finish by the end of the day.

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Less demanding is my re-reading of Jay Bennett’s Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (1968). I read it in 1995, when I was 13 or 14. It seemed dated then. But now more years have gone since I first read it than between that reading and when it was first published. And the book feels, if anything, more fresh.

I had a similar feeling the other day, showing Steve McQueen’s Bullitt, also from 1968, to my family. That movie used to seem antediluvian. Now, its hospitals and airports remind me of my childhood; they look how hospitals and airports should look.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 2: Love serenade

In Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade – as in the similarly bleak M*A*S*H – a loudspeaker emits a steady stream of blather for the benefit of the few inhabitants of a remote outpost. This town is Sunray, small and dusty, one thousand kilometers from the ocean. Its notable features include train tracks, two giant silos, and the River Murray.

The blather from the loudspeaker consists of music by Barry White and other lusty 1970s’ R&B singers, as well as spoken metaphysical commentary. The commentator is Ken Sherry (George Shetsov), a disk jockey from Brisbane who’s taken charge of Sunray’s radio station.

Why has he moved to Sunray? Is he in disgrace? Probably: he’s a sleazebag. What he tells his listeners is that he wishes to escape “the hustle and bustle of the big city.” He exudes a weary urbanity.

One of the locals mistakes this for sophistication. “Fascinating man!” she exclaims.

Her name is Vicki-Ann, and she’s played by Rebecca Frith. She decides that Ken Sherry will be her husband. (Never mind that he’s already been divorced three times.)

Vicki-Ann’s younger sister, Dimity (Miranda Otto), is less enthused about Ken Sherry. But soon she too is seduced by his sublime indifference. She’s so lonely, and he’s so detached, so insolent, that she interprets his slightest notice of her as a gesture of romance.

And, to do Ken Sherry justice, his manner does command attention. His body is tall and gangly, like a scarecrow’s. His hair is a mop. These features contrast with the quiet precision of his movement and speech. Ken Sherry is a sad sack and a dominating presence. He’s as watchable as Steve McQueen. If he’s not exactly a fascinating man, he’s a fascinating … something.

Love Serenade shakes together these elements – the desolate town and its silos, the river, the attractive/repellent sleazebag, and the two maladjusted sisters – as if they were so many weird dice. Seeing the outcome, you don’t say, “Of course!”; you say, “Well, why the hell not”; denouement isn’t the point.

It’s the elements themselves that are interesting. The silos are ordinary-looking – and ominous. Somehow, they seem too large. (Also, why is their color a sickly green?)

The River Murray, calm on the surface, evokes anxious depths, like the river in The Night of the Hunter. Dried out tree trunks stand in it like ruined pillars. The river is agreed to be treacherous, although the nature of that treachery is disputed by Dimity and Vicki-Ann. (Was their dog swallowed up by a hole in the river, as Vicki-Ann claims, or by a giant carp, which is Dimity’s account? “I’m with you, Vicki-Ann,” says Ken Sherry. “Why would a fish eat a dog?” But Vicki-Ann’s “hole” theory is no more plausible.)

These three oddball protagonists, jostled together by the plot, actually spend most of their respective minutes alone, like atoms traveling through empty space. If the movie is “about” anything, it’s the deformities that people acquire when they’re too much alone, and how those deformities prevent them from truly connecting to each other.

Look at the photo: the hearts are upside-down.