Mission status: On the surface.
“Tranquility. Be advised there’s lots of smiling faces in this room and all over the world. Over.”
Now reading The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee:
“We are here for the same reason everyone else is. We have been given a chance to live and we have accepted that chance. It is a great thing, to live. It is the greatest thing of all.”
We watched Hereditary and damned if it wasn’t the best new horror I’ve seen in ages, probably since The VVitch. Really well done, and best seen without first knowing anything about it. Best seen cold.
More movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Fun revisiting flicks I haven’t seen for years, and the boys enjoyed them too. “Freddy, what I am saying is, know your limitations. You are a moron.”
Further to the last, I could be in luck: NZ will be treated to three total solar eclipses in the next 20 years. The wide open spaces of Aussie look especially good for the one in 2028.
La Silla eclipse sequence. How much do I hope to get to see one of these in my lifetime? Very.
I like mountain biking as much as the next person who likes mountain biking, but this is insane.
My current obsession: playing with this website where you can take “a real-time journey through the first landing on the Moon”. So good.
Deadwood: The Movie isn’t perfect, but it’s fucking perfect enough.
In the spirit of @miraz’s nice bird pics today here’s a kakaruwai, or South Island robin. Lewis Pass, Jun 2016 #flyday
Further to the last, a few memoirs I’ve liked:
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
From the NYT, a list of recommended memoirs. Some of these will be finding their way onto my bedside table.
I hurt my left shoulder rotator cuff. Apparently it can happen from falling off bikes and also from being fifty. The exercises are helping.
Finally saw Galveston. It was pretty good and I just like Ben Foster more and more. Fun fact: the director is Melanie Laurent, who played Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds.
Art by Ornulf Opdahl.
“You can draw, and probably better than I can.” An oldie but a goodie from Ebert.
My new favourite YouTube channel might just be TheReportOfTheWeek. Snappy suits and fast food reviews… what’s not to like?
A death sentence is “the last sentence you read before decisively, or agonizingly gradually, abandoning a book.”