It's a Small World After All ... A Small, Small World

It seems as though I moved half-way around the world to see a movie about the place I grew up, and just left.

As previous posts note, the Auckland International Film Festival is on this month with fifty-some films featured over the two week festival at three downtown venues. The centerpiece of the festival will be a screening of "The Wind," a silent film, with accompaniment by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra. Unlike the other movies brought the festival by our benevolent communications monopoly and patron of the arts, Telecom, this movie will only be show once. [Maybe because it could serve to unsettle the audience by making them recall Auckland's 15 hour power outage last month, which Telecom has blamed on, you guessed it, the wind.] This shit is true -- I am not creative enough to make it up.



The Wind is appearantly about the endless West Texas wind and was adapted from the novel of the same name written by Emily Dorothy Scarborough about the period of time her family lived in Sweetwater, Texas. I can personally attest to the maddening effect of the West Texas wind. If it were not for tightly-sealed windows and modern conveniences creating artifical environments both in our buildings and in our vehicles, I would have gone mad long ago. My behavior on the rare occasions that I allowed myself to stay in the wind for any length of time assures me that, if I were an early settler in the horse-and-buggy days, I would have faced the gallows.

Of note, Ms. Scarborough's family is repleat with lawyers. According to UT's Handbook of Texas Online, Ms. Scarborough's father and brother were lawyers. Having lived in Sweetwater only 5 years (maybe the wind drove them out), the family moved to Waco and was appearantly very influential at Baylor University.

When I practiced law in Abilene, Texas (just 50 miles from the town upon which Ms. Scarborough based her book), the city had a long history of lawyers named Scarborough being capable and well-respected members of the local bar. I do not know if the Scarborough I practiced law with in Abilene is any relation to Emily Dorothy Scarborough, but those that read this blog may know.