Dispatches from Vilnius

You never know where a MAGA cap will turn up but I was surprised to see a Latino man sporting the bright red cap in front of me on a red tourist bus in Nice, France.  It was an insufferably hot day and he decided to open an umbrella to give him and his wife a little more protection but a woman behind him demanded he take it down.  He complied, which seemed very unMAGA of him, but I guess he didn't want to create a fuss.  He was part of a group scattered about the open deck of the bus as they all got off together at Fort du Mont Alban. I wasn't exactly sure what we were doing on the bus ourselves, as it didn't make much sense going around the city at the hottest time of the day, but Daina and I let ourselves be roped into it by Marija who felt Irena needed a break.  We were all trying to cover ourselves up as best we could from the unforgiving sun.  An older woman in our group was suffering the most as she had a sun allergy but no matter.  Daina and I finall...

Wimbledon crowns a new champion and the world is a better place for it.  Carlos Alcaraz wasn't even born the last time someone other than Federer (8), Djokovic (7), Murray (2) or Nadal (2) had won the most famous lawn tennis tournament.  The trivia answer is Lleyton Hewitt.  Yet, here was Djokovic breaking down as his chance of tying Federer for most Wimbledon championships slipped away from him.  Of course, Novak rebounded quickly to congratulate young Carlos, but he couldn't help slipping in that little bit about seeing himself in the young Spanish player. The funny thing about the finals match is that Carlos looked like the one in full control, timing his approaches to the net well and sealing key games with a great volley when he needed it.  By comparison, Novak rushed the net out of desperation with Carlos floating lobs over his head or passing him with devastating groundstrokes.  For all of Novak's great gifts, playing the net is not one of them....

My daughter is home for a couple weeks and we watched Scream last night.  If you follow the chronology, it would actually be Scream 5, as this is the first post-Wes Craven production, and really suffers for it.  Daina gave up immediately, not because she doesn't like horror movies, but because it was simply unwatchable as far as she was concerned.  However, Akvilė and I persevered. At one point I opined that maybe these Scream movies were not-so-subtle parables on date rape.  The killer inevitably turns out to be one of the best friends and girls seem to suffer the most in these films.  However, this Scream broke a lot of rules including allowing its initial victim to survive the attack.  We couldn't quite figure out whether this "Ghostface" was just an amateur or if it was intentional.   The "teenagers" were for the most part new to me, save Jenna Ortega and Dylan Minnette, although his bleached blonde look threw me at first.  Unfortunately...

I'm not quite sure what to make of the actors guild going on strike.  Are they really doing this in support of writers, who went on strike in May, or worried about their own futures in what will soon become an AI dominated industry ?  Of course the studio CEOs are no better.  Disney boss Bob Iger complaining that the Marvel product has become diluted with all the movies and spinoff television series is rich, considering his studio bought Marvel and diluted the product hoping to squeeze as much money as they can from it.   Years ago when I was living in DC I had the opportunity to attend an event in which Julie Dash talked about her film Daughters of the Dust .  It took her years to make the film as she produced it independently.  However, much of her talk was about how black artists had to take on Hollywood from the inside.  I asked wouldn't it be better and perhaps more easy to make an alternative to Hollywood as you did in this film?  How...

I thought if I got to the university just before four I would have no problem seeing the "Remarks by President Joe Biden" but the line stretched along three streets and I was seriously doubting I would get in.  However, the young woman beside me said the Grand Courtyard of Vilnius University was pretty big so she held out hope.  Three hours later we were screened through security and allowed into the inner courtyard.  It was still another half hour before the secret service let us through the portal into the Grand Courtyard, at which point the serpentine line collapsed and people rushed the gate.  Fortunately, no one was hurt but it was pretty amazing that Biden would draw such a massive crowd on a weekday.  This is something you would expect for a rock concert. There were a few Biden and Obama t-shirts but more people wore shirts supporting Ukraine.  Flags draped over shoulders as well. You weren't allowed to bring in any placards that would make it diffi...

Not so long ago Elon Musk was pushing for a moratorium on AI .  He felt Google was too far ahead in the game.  Now he is launching his quest for "maximum-truth-seeking AI" in TruthGPT which he unveiled in a Twitter interview with Tucker Carlson.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, as the old saying goes. I covered the idea of artificial intelligence a couple times since Geoffrey Hinton broke with Google earlier this year.  It has become the existential crisis of the 20's similar to the  Y2K bug  of the late 1990's when everyone thought computers would break down with all those zeros popping up in the year 2000.  In the end nothing happened, which was a bit anticlimactic given all the fear that was generated. Elon however is pitching his quest for AI as the ultimate truth, which no doubt he would like to copyright.  His interview is filled with the gobbledygook we've come to expect from him, spouting out malapropisms and coming up with fetching hy...

The helicopters have been buzzing around the Old Town for the past two days.  They were flying again bright and early this morning when I took the dog out for a walk.  As near as I can tell a pair of Blackhawks.  The entire quarter has been closed to vehicular traffic, so the cars were piled up along Vytautas St. as I went to the local bakery with Loki.  People don't seem too put out by it.  It's what you have to expect when you host a NATO summit in a small city.  After today it will be back to normal again. President Biden is giving a speech this afternoon in the grand courtyard of Vilnius University.  It is free and open to the public.  I'm half tempted to go.  Daina not so much.  We missed our opportunity to see Pres. Zelenskyy at Lukiškių square yesterday as a frontline Ukrainian flag was brought all the way from Kyiv by a group of marathon runners who took turns over the 723 km. distance.  A run that began 16 days ago.  ...

Watching Ad Astra the other night I wondered what's up with science fiction movies these days?  They seem to be on a search for God.  James Gray left no doubt about it but alas he drew a very nihilistic conclusion by film's end.  Not so Ridley Scott, his reboot of the Alien franchise in Prometheus and Covenant made it pretty clear that we owe our origins to giant alabaster men, or "engineers" as he called them, who terraformed planets and left their seeds of humanity throughout the universe.  This owed more to Erich Van Daniken books than it did a reinterpretation of the Bible, but his main character wore a cross so one assumes she had a Christian affinity.  It even led the Catholic World Report to expound on what this theological writer thought was the hidden message in the movie. I suppose many of us look for some connection between faith and reason, refusing to believe the two are mutually exclusive.  Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbu...

Each year when Wimbledon rolls around, I think about getting back into tennis.  Maybe it is because it happens during the height of summer, as I don't feel the same urge with the other major tournaments, or just the tradition that surrounds the event.  It is the oldest of the Grand Slam tournaments, dating back to 1877.  My father loved to talk about the great names from the 1920s when he played tennis, notably Wilmer Allison whom he played with at the University of Texas.  Allison never won Wimbledon, losing to Bill Tilden in the 1930 final, but did win the US Open in 1935. Tennis was mostly played on grass back then.  You had clay courts but Dad said you had to adjust your game considerably as these courts were much more forgiving with a loftier bounce that made it difficult to defend the net.  Like many players of his era, he played serve and volley.  Grass was ideally suited for this style of tennis.  Clay favored players who liked to stick t...

Scientists had a lot to say about Armageddon on its 25th anniversary, not that it matters as those who love this movie will stand by it no matter how much the Hollywood dynamic duo of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay defy the laws of gravity and just about everything else when it comes to science.  It's just entertainment fans cry, like Transformers and all the other claptrap these guys have produced and directed.  The latest installment came out last month. What is bothersome about Armageddon is that a lot of persons took it seriously, including Criterion which added it to its exclusive collection.  There's even an essay by Jeanine Basinger defending this "work of art."  Ms. Basinger was young Michael's mentor at Wesleyan film studies.  She praised the film for its "take-no-prisoners" form of storytelling.  A very nice way of putting it.   However, the production team did call in scientific consultants as Steven Spielberg had for Deep Impa...

It was about five years ago that the first Tesla popped up in Vilnius.  It was a recently manufactured Model 3.  Our Russian neighbor at that time said he had tried out the electric cars but the Tesla gave him the greatest range and was very happy.  I couldn't quite bring myself to ask for a test drive but no matter Teslas are now ubiquitous in Vilnius and you can rent them through Beast , an Estonian-based company that leases the electric cars throughout the Baltics for as little as ten euros for the first three hours.  However, I still haven't brought myself to try one. There are any number of electric car rentals available.  The most popular rental company is  Spark .  It started out with a fleet of VW E-up's and now has expanded into a wide range of models, including the Tesla Model Y.  The city offers all kinds of incentives including access to high-occupancy car lanes and  free parking.  The city has also unveiled its first el...