Fireworks in November

For six weeks from mid November to New Year the park behind my house hosts the Wayne County Festival of Lights. The park is long and skinny, taking up the river's floodplain. Drivers can follow the road along the river for almost 5 miles seeing various light displays, including something for Hanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. I can see bits of some of the displays and see the line of cars. I don't have photos of this year's show (I usually wait until after Christmas when the lines are much shorter). The entrance to the display is about a quarter-mile (as the crow flies) from my house and last Thursday was the celebratory opening, including 15 minutes of fireworks, and I do have a photo of that. Along the way I found how difficult it is to take photos of fireworks with my camera. Time to adjust the focus then actually take the picture is just too slow. Which means I found out how the delete function works.

I spent the afternoon at the Detroit Film Theater watching the current batch of winners of the British Television Advertising Awards. Yup, this is 80 minutes of commercials -- but with the British sense of sense of humor, quirkiness, and beauty. A few I remember:

* All the men, mostly old, participating in a footrace through the countryside, leaping (or not) over walls at the edges of fields, tripping down hills, stepping gingerly over the grates in the road that prevent cows from getting out, and falling in mud puddles. Competition makes for better products. The commercial is for a brand of bread.

* A fat naked man sits down in the steam room, only to discover he is in a restaurant kitchen. It is for an eyeglass company.

* The Aldi discount grocery chain had a series of commercials. In one a kid, whose head is about level with the kitchen counter, comments about and points to the boxes of dishwasher tablets, one a national brand, the other the house brand. But he says he would rather wash dishes this way: he reaches into the sink, pulls out a dirty plate, and licks it.

* Four hunky young men sing about the joys of farm life for an organic yogurt company. That one made the rounds of the gay blogs when it first came out.

* We see various scenes where every device is powered by a tiny gasoline motor with exhaust vents -- hair dryer, mixer, snack vending machine, and even the credit card reader brought to the table at a restaurant (the waiter has to top it off with a drop of gas). Message: We've turned to electricity to drive all kinds of devices. It's time we did the same with transportation. It was for an electric car.

* A young man passes a restaurant several times, catching the eye of a woman. Each time it inspires him into another round of self-improvement -- exercise, extra work, new clothes. He finally enters the bar, passes the woman, and orders a beer.