Picto Diary - 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 October 2021 - Grand Canyon
Above: Duc at Bishops. St. George, UT. 19 October 2021.
Out and about on the Duc.
Riding pre dawn in invigorating 40 degree temps.
Above: Bishop and Ed. Bishop's, St. George, UT. 19 October 2021.
Ed, having seen my motorcycle outside Bishop's, seeks me out indoors. He's riding a Can Am trike. Ed was raised in nearby Springdale where his dad owned the Shell station. His Dad owned a Shell station in Hatch as well. When Ed told me he went to Carbon High School (his family moved from Springdale) in Price, I told him that Carbon High School, along with Provo High School, was part of Region Five. I told Ed, "we used to hate you guys at Carbon. When we went up there to play basketball, we were always afraid we would be beaten up by tough miner kids." Ed will be a good guy to know. I hope he sees the same in me... though I have more reason to know him than he does me. Why? He's a proverbial guy who knows how to do stuff. He's been a truck driver, a machinist, and a farmer. As we near Armageddon, I like knowing a lot of people who know how to do stuff, because, of course, when the mud hits the fan, it is on those guys that most of the rest of us will be dependent. Ed and his wife own eighty acres of agricultural property on the Arizona Strip. Ed knows the good mechanics in town as well. I look forward to seeing more of him.
Above: Bishop, TIMDT, Bronx and Hoops at North Rim, Grand Canyon, Arizona. 19 October 2021.
We did a loop, running counter clock-wise, that included, Colorado City, Pipe Springs National Monument, Grand Canyon North Rim, Vermillion Cliffs, Lees Ferry, Navajo Bridge, Page, AZ and Glen Canyon Dam. We ended the day having dinner at Houston's Trails End Restaurant in Kanab. Houston's has been there since the movie making days of the fifties and sixties. It was a long day, but, a gratifying one. I'm a big fan of the loop, which I have done several times. My maternal great grandparents crossed the Colorado River at Lees Ferry in the 1880's on their way to be married in the St. George Temple. Their point of origin was Eager, Arizona. A 550 mile round trip, all done by a horse drawn buckboard wagon.
Well... I kinda nudged Bronx and Hoops to take the longer trip. We had only planned on driving North Rim and back. My new program doubled the driving distance... to close to 400 miles. They said they liked seeing the other sights. I hope they didn't think I was too pushy. We loved having Bronx and Hoops as house guests. We had a great time back in 2016 staying with them in Pelham and driving to Newport, RI, Culinary Institute on the Hudson, Dia Beacon Museum, and, again, staying with them in their country home in Millbrook, NY.
Above: Lake Powell, AZ/UT. 19 October 2021.
Above: "The Book of Eli." Watching back at home in Park City. 22 October 2021.
"The Book of Eli," starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beals. Ivins, UT. 13 October 2021.
I watched this 2010 produced movie again... maybe, for the fourth time. The movie is a cautionary tale about the importance of Western Culture underpinnings to Western civilizational success. The movie conveys the timely message that tyranny fills the vacuum left by taking down the framework which buttresses American liberty.
Setting for the film is post apocalyptic western America thirty years after an undescribed conflict that left America with no central authority. Post apocalyptic survivors foster a new generation that is illiterate and knows only despotism which is exercised locally by mini-dictators in small concentrations of population. The surviving old timers are literate and have memories of the world before.
A strange man, Eli (Washington) walks alone, west, through the desolation. Resulting from his meeting isolated groups of brigands, we learn that Eli has superior self defense capabilities. He carries a machete, a pistol, and a shot gun. At one point, channeling Jack Reacher, he takes out six thugs at one time. He resists confrontations when he can, but fights if he has to, He is on a mission of some kind.
Eli, an educated, pre-crisis figure, comes upon a run down town. The battery is down on the device he uses to listen to music. He finds a "fix it" shop, barters payment with a jacket he is carrying in his pack, and waits while his battery is charged. Eli needs water. He enters a bar to get his water bottle replenished and cannot avoid being assaulted by thugs who work for the self styled leader of the town, Carnegie (Oldman), also a literate, pre "event" survivor.
Carnegie loves to read books. He sends his otherwise illiterate thugs out, via motorcycles... via vans... into the torpid, decayed landscape to retrieve books. There is one book Carnegie more than any other. The Bible. Why? All Bibles were destroyed during the event Carnegie believes, that if he can possess a copy of the Bible, its transformational message will increase his ability to wield power not just over his rag tag town, but, over other towns as well.
We learn that Eli's mission is to bring a copy of the Bible to an undisclosed destination in the West.
Carnegie observes Eli's incredible fighting skills as Eli dispatches the thugs who accosted him in the bar. Carnegie considers Eli as a potential employee to carry out his territorial designs. Failing to impress Eli with his job offer, Carnegie puts Eli under house arrest of sort. Eli acquiesces to Carnegie's restraint because Carnegie promises him that he would only be held for a day and that he would give him a surfeit of water on departure. A woman, Solara (Mila Kunis), is sent to Eli's room overnight to sweeten the pot of Carnegie's job offer. Eli resists the temptation. But, Solara, grateful that Eli doesn't kick her out of the room, observes Eli reading the Bible. She is curious. Next day, when Solara reports to Carnegie, she talks about Eli and his book. The cat is out of the bag. Eli has the very book sought by Carnegie.
Carnegie, by brute force, more force than it would take to subdue a normal man, obtains Eli's Bible. Eli is left in the desert to die. Solara, back tracks to see to Eli's well being and finds him walking west, continuing on his mission. Why is he continuing his mission without the book, Solara wonders? Fearing retribution from Carnegie, Solana accompanies Eli on his mission west.
Solara and Eli arrive at Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Scenes of San Francisco show an empty, dilapidated, run-down, uninhabited city.
The people at Alcatraz are part of a special group whose purpose is to rebuild American/Western Civilization. They have most of the old books... Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Milton... but, they don't have the most important one... the Bible.
Eli completes his mission by dictating, from memory, the entire contents of the Bible to scribes at Alcatraz. Not only did Eli have amazing fighting ability, it appears he had been blind, but, somehow, pertaining to his mission, been given supra normal capacities to overcome his blindness. After completing his transcription of the Bible from memory, Eli succumbs to his wounds. Solara, departs Alcatraz carrying Eli's machete, now on her own mission to advance cultural renewal
The film flashes back to Carnegie's town showing Carnegie unlocking the Bible he has taken from Eli. Carnegie finds that Eli's Bible is written in brail... and of no use to him. Carnegie still has hope. Solana's mother, Claudia (Jennifer Beals) is his consort. She is blind. She can translate the brail! But, because of Carnegie's mistreatment of Solana, Claudia refuses to translate... at the cost of her life.
Why do I like this movie? Because it links the Bible to the success of Western Culture. As today's cancel culture moves to destroy aspects of our past they deem as flawed, including the Bible, it is critical that we try to understand what will replace what we are destroying. "The Book of Eli," is prescient, in my view, about what will fill the cultural vacuum left by eliminating understanding of our past. And, it is not good.
Above: PC Mountain. Park City, UT. 22 October 2021.
Addendum:
Great diary. Glad you found all of our favorite restaurants in St. George.
St. George Steve,
St. George, UT
So great to see Elaine again.
Drums,
Lehi, UT.