Month: October 2025

I watch some strange shows and movies. I’m reminded of this every time I get into a discussion about what people have been watching lately and I (1) often have no idea about whatever the rest of the group is fixated on at that time and (2) am met with blank stares or slight horizontal shaking of the head as if to say not again. Even in these missives I’ve written in recent months about a few gritty foreign detective shows and an anime series.

Well, this weekend I partook in a foreign film instead of a television show. On the recommendation of one of my law school classmates, I watched The Seed of the Sacred Fig. This was a movie that was nominated for best international film at the Oscars this year and won several other awards on the 2024 circuit. The film was produced in conjunction with French and German organizations, but it is an Iranian movie. I watched it with the original Farsi audio and read subtitles. According to some of the reports about the movie I read while writing this post, footage had to be smuggled out of the Iran as the film is hardly kind towards the regime.

Figs aren’t really a part of my own culture so some of the imagery was lost in translation, but the film takes on themes of struggle, pressure to conform, the desire for freedom, control of information, gender dynamics, and more without ever resorting to beating the audience over the head with the directors’ own beliefs. The director certainly has strong beliefs and doesn’t hide them, which is why the film had to be smuggled out of the country, but the story always stays at the forefront of the film. In terms of plot, the film is set mostly in Tehran and focuses on a single family of four. The two children are young women, one in high school and the other in university. The father gets a promotion in the clerical court system around the same time that a wave of protests roils universities. When one of the girls’ friends is injured by police during a protest, this precipitates the family unraveling in a tragic though not quite predictable manner.

The movie itself has a feel similar to other modern Iranian movies that achieved some success in the West. It is a slow burn and there is a lot of dialogue with stationary cameras. It’s not that there are no action scenes in this one. There are. There just aren’t as many as the visual candy that makes up most contemporary cinema but leaves you empty afterwards. This one ends with an image that sticks.

On Thursday, I ventured west on what turned into a five and a half hour drive to Bryson City, a little mountain town abreast the Nantahala River and up against Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The drive was longer than I’d hoped (and the drive back on Sunday was mostly spent in the rain of a tropical remnant), but the trip accomplished most of what I wanted.

I did not time the foliage well as I was at least a week early to see the peak fall colors, but this was the time I had available and there is always some variability in those forecasts. My parents joined from Thursday to Saturday, which meant a more leisurely Friday than might have otherwise been the case. I worked in the morning before an afternoon walk to see the three waterfalls that are readily accessible from the Deep Creek entrance to the national park. Then I made a regrettable dinner choice of a place that put way too much cheese on their pizzas and we called it an early night so they would be rested for their drive back.

The main purpose of the trip for me was the two half day hikes that I took on Saturday. Both were similar in that they went straight up ridges to high vantage points, with lots of elevation gain and dirt and gravel underfoot. I wanted the hikes to be hard as a reminder to myself. And I like to hear the sound of crunching under my boots. I was actually breaking in new boots on this trip as my old reliable footwear finally succumbed to time while I was in the Faroe Islands. The view was better and more unobstructed at the top of the first hike, a shorter one up to a fire tower in the national forest south of the national park, than at the top of my longer afternoon hike in the national park. The net effect of the hikes was that, for a few hours anyway, I was able to turn off my phone and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. My mind never emptied, but it was as close to a Zen experience as I’ve had in a while.

I opted to stay at a bed and breakfast out of town and close to the park entrance. I wanted both to save a little by getting breakfast included and be away from any late night noise. It was certainly quiet, and the breakfasts were all good as the operator used to be a professional chef. The best two meals of the short trip, though, were at permanent food trucks, one a plate of Korean-style sweet short ribs with rice and vegetables and the other a pastrami and corned beef sandwich on rye. I put yellow mustard on mine and nothing else, which tends to lead to slightly befuddled looks. Not that that has ever stopped me. I don’t expect I’ll be going back to that particular little town again soon as there are closer options, but it was refreshing to breathe some mountain air and to wake up nestled against a different part of the same mountain range that was an ever present during my childhood.

I kicked off my version of the Broadway season last night. No, I didn’t make a quick trip back to New York. Instead, I drove downtown to see The Sound of Music at DPAC, a theater that is really much nicer than should be in a city this size. I’ve probably written that before, but I’m reminded of that fact every time I go.

I ate dinner beforehand at a restaurant that tries to transport you to the French Quarter in New Orleans. While it doesn’t quite achieve that set in a renovated tobacco warehouse as it is, the gumbo is good. The hostess seemed surprised when I asked to sit at a table instead of at the bar. And I get it, as a table for one means an empty seat. But I was also eating early and there were open tables the entire time I was there. I’ve long since gotten over any anxiety about eating alone if that’s the concern. Then I took a short, leisurely stroll over to the theater.

This year, I decided to upgrade my seating. Previously, I’ve always been in the upper deck, often towards a back corner. Last night, I was in the second row of the middle deck. It was a worthwhile upgrade. Not only was I closer to the stage and so could see more of the actors’ expressions, but I also didn’t have as many people in front of me fidgeting around and so had a clearer view of the stage. I did have a few children behind me last night, but their sound effects added to the show instead of detracting from it. I’ve purchased a ticket for three shows thus far and may add a fourth once the tickets for Hamilton go on sale. If nothing else, it gives me something different to do on a few Tuesday evenings.

The show itself was the longest I’ve seen in some time. There was even an intermission. The child actors were poised and composed and the lead actress is a star in the making. Having seen the movie more than once before, there weren’t any surprises, though at least they stuck to what worked and didn’t attempt a contemporary political browbeating and that was refreshing. It ranks in the top 5 for me, and I’ve seen enough shows for that to have some meaning.

Three trips to New York City in a year are at least two too many. I especially feel that way when all three were for work. This one was the hardest of the three, not least because I slept the worst this time. The buildings seemed to press down on me even more too. I also don’t really have the disposition to be successful over long stretches of a conference with lots of ambient noise and background conversations. It isn’t playing to my strengths. Even though I push through when called upon for conferences like this, it is draining to do so. This conference was at least more like two meeting sprints each day rather than two marathons. We almost never attend content sessions at conferences; that’s not the reason we’re here. Conferences like this one are all about 1:1 (or 1:2 as the case may be) meetings making and deepening connections with potential clients and partners. And we won’t really know if it was a success for at least a few months.

I tried to keep things positive. I continued my practice of exploring the New York food scene on this visit. We had two dinners, so I chose one exotic place and one more traditional. Last night’s Bolognese was very good at the Midtown Italian restaurant that was our more traditional NYC dinner. It was also a shorter walk from our hotel, but I preferred the Cambodian restaurant on the Upper East Side where we had dinner on Monday as it offered something I cannot quite get at home. While it was a far cry from sitting on a brightly colored little plastic stool on the street eating frog legs in Siem Reap, not least because it was air conditioned, the food was all very good. We had beef skewers with a peanut sauce for an appetizer and I ordered duck breast in a tamarind sauce, a tangy sauce that paired well with the duck fat and didn’t overpower the rice. The Angkor artwork adorning the walls was also a nice touch. Then I had passionfruit gelato on the walk back to add some Latin sour into the culinary mix for the evening.