More of a Lars Von Trier kind of a flick:

about two strangers, one exotic man and one non-exotic woman who meet during a huge snowstorm and fall in love:

Let’s let the shadows and light wash over us as we approach our future:

There’s a certain thrill to getting a photo in a dynamic situation.  Anyone can photograph things that are standing still, but you have to work a lot harder to photograph something that is moving, obviously.

In my case, I had to dodge burly Boston Police Officers who were trying to get me out of the road today in Harvard Square where Kerry Washington was getting her Hasty Pudding award.  But I kept on keeping on and got my photos.

Kerry Washington, looking quite lovely today:

So handsome that he doesn’t even realize it:

These sorta came together in an interesting way in the Harvard Museum of Art:

So here we are in the doldrums of January.  To paraphrase my friend Herman, its not January itself.  Its what January does to me.

January does mean ski season (and we’ll get to that part in a second) but it also means going to the movies to see wonderful January releases.  Two of my dear friends told me they wanted to see a movie called “The Forest.”  Ok how bad can it be?  A movie about a forest?

Turned out to be some kind of suicide forest in Japan where an English teacher had disappeared.  The main character, a delicate looking blond woman was taken into this forest searching for her missing (conveniently dark haired) twin sister (the aforementioned English teacher).  Oh and hilarity ensues!!!!  Nah, I’m kidding.  The blond one is in the forest looking for the dark haired one with some kind of halfway sane Japanese guide who says WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T STAY IN THE FOREST OVERNIGHT and this being the movies, the blond, along with a cute guy (who is sinister) stay there.  All sorts of scary things happen or at least I think they do because I spent most of the movie with my hand over my eyes, trying to block out surely disturbing imagery.

Now blog reading public, let me explain something.  I will go speeding down a double black trail.  I even learned to ski the hell, the moguls, this season, but horror movies?  Yeah.  Count me out.

Well, anyway, movies and skiing came together at this Sunday’s ski adventure.  I went to Sugarbush, a place that is absolutely my favorite ski resort of them all.  Nice smoothed out slopes without too many bumps.  I got some double black action in there, which dare I say, was sort of unchallenging??  OK tempting the skiing gods with that statement, but I did manage to get a lot of edge action when I was on the double black today.  Also, in a stunning turn of events, I skied moguls on a black trail.  Sure, I considered walking up the same trail and I also said a lot of four letter words that do not belong on this blog, but I made it down.  Yeah me…

So, some photos below of the scary forest I entered today and of Heaven’s Gate.  Fortunate for me, I was not overtaken by some sort of spirits and driven to commit murder or something.  Is that how that movie ended?  I’m not sure.  I had my hand over my face.

Let’s enjoy some skiing photos instead:

 

Yeah, I know that a drug reference, but as wise ski instructor once told me, skiing is the best drug of them all.  Not having any extensive experience with drugs (except for chocolate chip cookies and Real Housewives shows) I’ll take his word for it.

When I do go skiing, I do think a lot about these funny universal truths I’ve realized about skiing over the years.  First and foremost in my mind is the fact that in 2011, when I went to re-learn how to ski, I thought it was going to be a one time thing, never to be repeated.

At first when I started going skiing, I noticed I got this mental clarity from the whole thing that nothing else had ever given me.  Beyond that though, I like the weekend skiing because it gives me a place to go and this kind of sense of community.  On every ski lift, people get on and start talking you automatically.  They want to know how your day is going, fill you in different trails to visit and give you tips on what to do.  I found out about my favorite trail at Sugarbush from a conversation on a lift.  Lately, I got some good advice about which gloves to buy.  The consensus seems to be that gloves should be purchased at the hardware store.

Today I visited Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, which I visited before when the conditions there reminded me skiing on small ice rocks.  Today the conditions were fabulous.  I find this out when I entered some terrain marked “expert” and made it down in that area in an orderly fashion on the first try.  On the second try, I landed in a big pile of soft powder.  Live and learn I guess.

So here at this part I will compile my list of the universal truths of skiing.  Skip past this if the skiing talk has bored you silly.  There will be pictures below.  I promise.

1. The ski trip you want to go on will inevitably be disappointing.
2. The ski trip you aren’t in the mood for and don’t want to get up for will be amazing.
3. Don’t get intimidated by that five year old who just zoomed past you on the black diamond.  They probably live one mile from the resort.
4. Some ski lifts are fine.  Other resemble catapults.
5. The conversations on the ski lifts are great fun.
6. The conversations with ski patrol are even greater fun.
7. Avoid people wearing jeans to ski on the mountain.
8. Some snowboarders stinking of marijuana will always join you on the lift.  Pay them no mind at all.
9. (This is true in New England)  The dulcet tones of classic rock will pervade every slope you visit, just as God intended.
10. Eat something before you ski.  This one is pretty obvious, but one I avoided for a long time because I thought I was wasting time.
11. Drink something before you ski.  Drink a lot and I mean Gatorade not vodka shots.
12. Any skiing you do after 3pm is a gift.
13. When they say expert terrain, they mean it.
14. Jelly legs are awesome.  They mean you are having a good day and pushing yourself really hard.  They also mean it is time to take a break.
15. If you aren’t falling, you aren’t learning.
16. You can loosen your form or change it but you have to have it in the first place.
17. A plan on how to get down from that mountain is vital.  That plan can always fall apart.
18. “Easy” in terms of skiing is really relative.
19. Don’t get too attached to your poles.  They will get bent or stolen multiple times.
20. Nickname your skis.  Mine are “The Pythons.”  Its cute and sinister at the same time.
21. Once this skiing thing gets into your head, it will never leave.

And that is all she wrote.  Let’s get to today’s views:

This week might qualify as some kind of a marathon.  I was out late four nights this week, including last night when I got to Back Bay station at midnight, got home, set the alarm for 4am and then returned to Back Bay station to take my bus to go skiing.

Obviously, tonight I will get a really good night’s sleep.  So, where was I so eager to go this morning?  Sunday River, a resort I like and have been to a couple of times over the years.  Thing is though, I’ve been there when it has been beautiful and blue skies as far as the eye can see.  Today, well, today that was not the case.

Today the place was covered in fog.  Thick, heavy fog that makes for great photos  but not great skiing.  Added to that, it was snowing, which again, would stand to reason would be good for skiing related endeavors, but in reality the snow piles up into what I like to call “a hell” or “the hell” — MOGULS.

Let’s backtrack.  My blog, my rules.  Anyway, so a couple of years ago, I went skiing with a friend of mine who is from Arabian climates and is of an Arabian temperament.  He thought that the mere act of putting on the skis would confer the ability to ski upon him, or something.  That’s not exactly how it works and he explained to me that skiing was like “a hell” for him.  Since then I’ve adopted the similar expression for myself with respect to moguls.  Like “a hell” for me.  The whole mountain was covered in the hell today.

But as usually happens when I’m skiing, my attitude changed.  Instead of being stuck in my “just strictly alpine” for me style, I decided to actually learn to ski the bumps.  I usually keep my form pretty tight, but today to try to navigate the moguls, I loosened up a lot and changed my form.  I loosened up my arms and legs.  I let my mind go and my body followed.  Dare I say it — skiing “the hell” was actually nice.  So nice in fact that I decided to do it twice.

And of course, we cannot forget about those views.  THOSE VIEWS:

 

As part of my job, I repeatedly visit the same places over and over again in Boston.  That might sound boring to some, but it is never boring to me.  I see the places again and again with different people and see the experience through a different set of eyes.  I also see the places at different times of year.

The Institute of Contemporary Art is one of those places.  I’ve been going there for five years.  Its another of those places in Boston that I visited before I was a teacher and thought I’d visit once, never imagining in a million years that I’d continually visit it.

I’ve seen some good art there, some great art and some utterly incomprehensible art.  One instance that comes to mind was an exhibit that consisted of a man’s boxer shorts, his jeans, t-shirt and shoes.  It looked like a pile of clothes I’d leave on the floor.  Ridiculous.  Ok I rephrase.  Unconventional and to be taken seriously as it is an a serious expression of the artist’s feelings.  Well, either way, they are all great: