Day #21,757

Walk km 5050-5058
(16,699 to go): to Yaletown Station/(skytrain)/49th/Ontario/51st/Prince Edward/53rd/Ontario/54th/Argyle/60th

yet another flower
aprox km 5058 60th Ave

Movie #1326 (#147 this year): Gun Crazy(1950, Joseph H Lewis)

There is one thing wrong with this movie: the plot doesn't matter. Bart & Annie are doomed from day 1 - there's just no getting around it. However, it's quite a ride. Every scene has been well thought out to get the maximum visual effect. Peggy Cummins and John Dall are both great. And even though we know they're gonna have to pay in the end, the climax in the marsh is another bonus.

Book #299 (#23 this year): Jackal(1998, John Follain)

I read this one about terrorist Carlos The Jackal when the Barbet Schroeder documentary about his lawyer (Verges) made me curious about terrorists before Bin Laden.
This is a well written book in which the author finds fault with most everyone from Carlos who kills and blows stuff up for money to the politicians who give in to his demands. At the end of the book the author states that the world has passed Carlos by. He didn't know how right he was. Just three years later Bin Laden made Carlos the Jackal look quite irrelevant. The difference: Carlos worked for money. Besides planning the dastardly deed he also had to plan how to "get away with it". With the advent of the religious terrorist organizations (like al-Qaeda), "getting away with it" no longer mattered. Carlos couldn't fly a plane into a skyscraper because "you can't take it with you". That's no problem for Osama Bin Laden amnd his minions.
But comparing Osama to Carlos almost makes Osama look good. Apparently, he has no problem living in the caves of Pakistan even though he was brought up as a spoiled rich kid. Carlos would never do that. He claimed he was a revolutionary but he lived in villas, wore designer clothes, and enjoyed the best booze, cigars and beautiful women that money could buy.