Monthly Archives: June 2011

Farewell, Worthington

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I am going to miss southwest Minnesota.

I blame physics. Apparently there’s some natural law or something about how you can’t have one object in two places at the same time, and because I’m moving to Jamestown, N.D. this week, I can’t simultaneously be in southwest Minnesota sipping pina coladas on the shores of Lake Okabena.

Stupid laws of nature. Sure, they keep us from falling off the planet or spontaneously combusting, but they also keep us from having cool stuff like cold fusion, perpetual motion, giants, eternal life and teleportation, not to mention fat-free desserts that taste good.

If you disobey the laws of nature, do you get arrested?

This is something I need to know. I’m taking a reporting position at the Jamestown Sun, which is owned by Forum Communications Company, the same company that owns the Daily Globe.

Unfortunately, this means I need to move every single object I own to Jamestown. I’m convinced that if I broke some laws of physics I could get it all done right quick.  However, I’m a little worried about what would happen if I got caught, so maybe I’d better not.

I’m going to miss Lake Okabena, though, and all the people I met here, most of whom have helped me out in one capacity or another — given me guitar lessons, dragged my car out of the ditch, served as a source for a story or just read an article or two.

There are too many people to thank, and I’m fairly sure if I tried I’d have to start taking more drugs to combat my already-high blood pressure. And I would probably have to share those same drugs with my editor, because a list that long would take up the entire news section, even if we put it in print so small only gnats could read it. Small gnats. You know, the ones that bite.

Plenty of things make Worthington unique — the windsurfing, the turkey race, the multitude of cultures and the lake — but none of that makes it awesome. What makes Worthington and all of southwest Minnesota awesome is the people who live here.

I moved to Jackson in the middle of 10th grade, and my classmates made me feel welcome and wanted. I moved to Worthington almost six years ago, and here, too, I have felt welcome and wanted.

But, as Scotty from “Star Trek” said, “You cannae change the laws of physics!” and I can’t be in two places at once. I am truly sorry to leave, and I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know so many of you.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Columbo Is Dead

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Peter Falk died yesterday at his home.

Most people think of him as Columbo, but I never saw him in that role except in short little commercials.

I’m sure I’m like many people my age in that I recall Falk primarily as the cheery, loving grandfather in “The Princess Bride.” The movie wouldn’t have been the same with a different actor in that role, and though he and Fred Savage act as a framing device for the action fairy tale part of the flick, perhaps the real story of the movie is that of a little boy bonding with his grandpa.

Unlike most Americans, though, I vividly remember Falk in another role. He played himself, as a matter of fact, in “The Wings of Desire,” an arty German movie about an angel, who, tired of merely watching humans going about their business, longs to become one.

The German title really translated something more like “The Heavens Over Berlin,” and to me, at least, it was an odd movie. I saw it in a philosophy class, and it was definitely a lot more philosophical than most movies I’ve seen (even movies about philosophers). Nick Cave was in it. There were scenes in a circus (the angel’s love interest is an acrobat). A large portion of the movie centered around the Berlin Wall and what it meant, what it did, what it was.

It was a much, much better movie than its American remake, “City of Angels,” which removed the philosophy, removed the Berlin wall and changed the ending of the love story.

“When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions. Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Isn’t life under the sun just a dream? Isn’t what I see, hear, and smell just the mirage of a world before the world? Does evil actually exist, and are there people who are really evil? How can it be that I, who am I, wasn’t before I was, and that sometime I, the one I am, no longer will be the one I am?”

Peter Falk played, more or less, himself–a film star doing a movie in Berlin. The movie had something to do with the Holocaust. There was a bit of a twist in Falk’s character which I don’t want to give away, in case you plan on seeing the movie, but he instilled the role with great humanity and a bit of quirkiness:

[sketching an female extra, who is waiting on the set] “What a dear face! Interesting. What a nostril. A dramatic nostril. These people are extras. Extra people. Extras are so patient. They just sit. Extras. These humans are extras. Extra humans.”

Apparently, Falk had his eye removed as a child because he had a malignant tumor. This came as a complete surprise to me.

Either way, he will be missed.