Daily Update: July 1, 2009

On this First Day of the Month of July (heralding the start of the second half of 2009), we honor Blessed Junipero Serra, Priest (died 1784). Born at Petra, Spanish Majorca as Miguel Jose Serra, he entered the Franciscan University at Palma at age 15, and joined the Order at age 17, taking the name Junipero after the friend of Saint Francis. Ordained in 1737, he taught philosophy and theology at the Lullian University. In 1749, Father Serra was sent to the missionary territories of the west of North America. A mosquito bite he received early in his trip to the New World left one leg swollen; this and his asthma made walking a painful process for the rest of his life. In 1768 he took over missions in the Mexican provinces of Lower and Upper California, missions the Jesuits were forced to abandon by order of King Charles III. A tireless worker, Serra was largely responsible for the foundation and spread of the Church on the West Coast of the United States. He founded twenty-one missions, converted thousands of Native Americans, and trained many of them in European methods of agriculture, cattle husbandry, and crafts. A dedicated religious and missionary, he was penitent and austere in all areas of his life. Father Serra is the namesake of the Serra Club, an international Catholic organization dedicated to the promotion of vocations and the support of seminarians and religious novices. Many of his letters and other writings have survived, and the diary of his travels to the west was published in the early 20th century. His statue is one of the two official statues representing the State of California in Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. (the other statue was of Thomas Starr King, but it was removed in favor of Ronald Reagan in 2009). He was beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II, and his canonization is pending; so if you are healed through his intercession, please contact the Vatican. Today is also the birthday of one of my daughter’s friends (1986), with whom she may be renting an apartment in Lafayette next spring. (Alas for my daughter, this friend is allergic to cats, which ruins our daughter’s plans for absconding with one or two of our cats when she moves.)

 Before I arose and met the day at 10:15 am today, Richard had already woken up and put flea stuff (to kill fleas, not to attract them) on our two cats who are the only two of our eight who come inside with any consistency. Richard also got a call from his Sister in Iowa; his Brother in Baton Rouge will be having surgery on the 14th (Bastille Day) for his prostate, and all of Richard’s sisters (three, now) and his Brother Here In Town will be in Baton Rouge for the occasion. Meanwhile, I did what I normally do on the first of the month; I cleared my phone log and timers, put in new contact lenses (or, at least, a new left one, as I’d put in a new right one a few days ago), and adjusted today’s date on my watches from the 31st to the 1st.

After I started my laundry, I did my usual morning Internet stuff, then read the morning paper, by which time my laundry (washing & drying) was done. I put my clothes away, then Richard and I headed into town. Our first stop was for me to purchase my twice-weekly Powerball tickets (naturally, I won nothing on the previous tickets I’d purchased); then we went to Wal-Mart, where I got my 2009 – 2010 Louisiana Freshwater and Saltwater Fishing License and a box of toothpicks. We ate lunch at the Chinese restaurant, then, when we got home, we suspended our sweet potato by the sink in a glass of water (using four toothpicks), and denuded it of the very leggy vines it had produced. (Now that it’s in water, we expect it to start again with vines, and roots besides.)

Richard and I then turned on the DVR and watched Law & Order: Special Victims Unit ‘Liberties’ and Law & Order ‘Skate or Die’; then Richard mowed our back yard. After Jeopardy!, Richard and I elected to go eat at the Sports Bar / Steakhouse for dinner; then we went to visit with his cousins who live in our neighborhood (brother & sister), to have a mutual catch-up of family news. While there, Richard’s cousin (male half) went outside to smoke, and called us outside; there was a paraglider up in the air, which is something we normally do not see in our skies.

Now that we are home, and that darkness is beginning to covereth the land, I will finish today’s Daily Update, and then go take a bath while I do some reading.

Tomorrow is Thursday, which means that I will be doing my TV scheduling, along with uploading my June photos from my camera and from my BlackBerry to the computer.

Our Parting Quote upon this Wednesday evening comes to us from Marlon Brando, American actor. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he had a tumultuous youth; he was held back a year in school and was later expelled from his high school  for riding his motorcycle through the school. At the age of sixteen years, he was sent to Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, where he excelled at theatre. In 1942 he made his way to New York City, where he studied at the American Theatre Wing Professional School, at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with the influential German director Erwin Piscator and at the Actors’ Studio. It was at the New School’s Dramatic Workshop that he studied with Stella Adler and learned the techniques of the Stanislavski System. Brando used his Stanislavski System skills for his first summer-stock roles in Sayville, New York on Long Island. His behavior got him kicked out of the cast of the New School’s production in Sayville, but he was discovered in a locally produced play there and then made it to Broadway in the bittersweet drama I Remember Mama in 1944. Brando achieved stardom, however, as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’s 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Elia Kazan. His performance revolutionized acting technique and set the model for the American form of method acting. Brando’s first screen role was as the bitter paraplegic veteran in The Men in 1950. True to his method, Brando spent a month in bed at a veterans’ hospital to prepare for the role. Brando made a strong impression in 1951 when he brought his performance as Stanley Kowalski to the screen in Kazan’s adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for that role, and again in each of the next three years for his roles in Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius Caesar in 1953 as Mark Antony, and On the Waterfront in 1954. In 1953, Brando also starred in The Wild One riding his own Triumph Thunderbird 6T motorcycle which caused consternation to Triumph’s importers, as the subject matter was rowdy motorcycle gangs taking over a small town.Later that same year, Brando starred in Lee Falk’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man in Boston. It would be the last time he ever acted in a stage play. Director Nicholas Ray took the gang image from the movie The Wild One and brought it to his 1955 movie, Rebel Without A Cause, and thus emphasized Brando’s effect on youth. During the 1950s he took on a variety of film roles, winning an Oscar nomination for his role in Sayonara (1957), and continued his career in the 1960s with movies such as Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Nonetheless, his career had gone into almost complete eclipse by the end of the decade, thanks to his reputation as a difficult star and his record in over-budget or marginal movies. Brando’s performance as Vito Corleone in 1972’s The Godfather was a mid-career turning point. Director Francis Ford Coppola was electrified by Brando’s characterization as the head of a crime family, but had to fight the studio in order to cast the temperamental Brando, whose reputation for difficult behavior and demands was the stuff of backlot legend. Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but turned down the Oscar, becoming the second actor to refuse a Best Actor award (the first being George C. Scott for Patton). Brando boycotted the award ceremony, sending instead American Indian Rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather, who appeared in full Apache dress, to state Brando’s reasons, which were based on his objection to the depiction of American Indians by Hollywood and television. The actor followed with one of his greatest performances in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1973 film, Last Tango in Paris, but the performance was overshadowed by an uproar over the erotic nature of the film. Despite the controversy which attended both the film and the man, the Academy once again nominated Brando for the Best Actor. Brando’s career afterward was uneven. He was paid one million dollars a week to play the iconic Colonel Kurtz in 1979’s Apocalypse Now. He was supposed to show up slim, fit, and to have read the novel Heart of Darkness, but instead arrived weighing around 220 pounds and had not read the book. As a result, his character was shot mostly in the shadows and most of his dialogue was improvised. After his week was over, director Francis Ford Coppola asked him to stay an extra hour so that he could shoot a close up of Brando saying, “The horror, the horror.” Brando agreed for an extra $75,000. After this film his weight began to limit the roles he could play. Brando portrayed Superman’s father Jor-El in the 1978 Superman: The Movie, donning an English accent for the part. He agreed to the role only on assurance that he would be paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he would not have to read the script beforehand and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. It was revealed in a documentary contained in the 2001 DVD release of Superman, that he was paid $3.7 million for just two weeks of work. Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, he subsequently gave interesting supporting performances in movies such as A Dry White Season (for which he was again nominated for an Oscar in 1989), The Freshman in 1990 and Don Juan DeMarco in 1995. In his last film, The Score (2001), he starred with fellow method actor Robert De Niro. In his final years, his notoriety, his troubled family life, and his obesity attracted more attention than his late acting career. He gained a great deal of weight in the 1980s and by the mid 1990s he weighed over 300 pounds and suffered from diabetes (died 2004): “Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we’re acting. Most people do it all day long.”