If you have met me in the last 15 years, there’s a decent chance you have seen me in this orange jacket:
I acquired it in 2004 on a trip from Madison to Kansas City with a few people from my youth group to attend a conference. We stopped at a Salvation Army somewhere along the way, which is where I spotted it. Don’t remember how much it cost, but since I’ve worn it for darn near half the year every year since, I’d say it was a sound investment regardless.
It had the same appeal then as it does now: a bold orange color, accessible pockets, and the perfect thickness for use as a spring and autumn jacket—not too thick and not too thin.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s time to find another light jacket. It’s starting to fray now, having served me and previous owners well for who knows how long. Something more waterproof or muted might be a better look and practical move.
But by Jove, I’m sticking with it, because I stick with useful things to their bitter end. It’s my only play against planned obsolescence and conspicuous consumerism. Until I accidentally lose it or it disintegrates beyond repair, it’s staying on my coat rack. That’s the only way to honor such a reliable companion.
All the time people come to the info desk asking how they can renew their library card.
Maybe they got a reminder call or noticed the expiration sticker on the card or were blocked from checking out an ebook. Either way, I point them to the circulation department and off they go. They show their card to the clerk, confirm their contact info, maybe pay some fines, and then go on their way.
It’s routine. An afterthought. Most people aren’t thinking about how such a simple act has the potential to transform their life.
Because renewing your library card is an act of hope.
It’s a demonstration of faith in the future.
It’s a declaration of principles, of the value of civic pride.
It’s a personal affirmation of the freedom to read and take classes and learn a language and join a discussion group and discover ideas you never could have imagined.
It’s a chance to start fresh, even if you regularly use it. Just imagine what it will allow you to read, watch, hear, do, and learn about.
If your library card has gone dormant or missing, renew it and begin again.
A friend tagged me in one of those Facebook chain-letter things, which I usually ignore but this one was about movies so why not. (Posting here to avoid giving Facebook free content to exploit.)
Movie I hate: Slumdog Millionaire
Movie I love: October Sky
Movie I think is overrated: The Shape of Water
Movie I think is underrated: Return to Me
Movie I could watch on repeat: Hell or High Water
Movie that made me fall in love with movies: Back to the Future
Movie that changed my life: High Fidelity
Guilty pleasure*: National Treasure
Movie I should have seen by now but haven’t: The Shining (but really, most acclaimed horror films)
In case you haven’t been following the news (and who can blame you?), that’s the first-ever image of a black hole:
There’s plenty of writing out there on what it means, much of it going over my head, but here’s some grounding perspective from Scientific American:
It is also worth noting that in the two hours after the press conference, at least six scientific papers on the observation have appeared online. They almost certainly contain clues and new questions that will take more time to process than a 24/7 news cycle can tolerate. For now, though, it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the strangeness of nature, and the remarkable fact that these sentient, tool-using bipeds on a small world in a backwater solar system somehow managed to turn their planet into a telescope and take a picture of an exit chute from the universe.
Here’s a recent text exchange with a friend of mine that I started:
I keep thinking about the part in How to Change Your Mind about how babies are basically tripping all the time because of their undeveloped brains. Even mundane stuff can blow [my infant’s] mind.
Right?! He’s probably still seeing the cosmic consciousness!
But keeping its secrets to himself of course. All this pooping and spitting up is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that babies are actually wizards.
And language is the protective barrier. He probably even knows what stars his atoms came from once upon a time. He’s got them all mapped out.
And the squeaks and babbles are him actually telling me about it straight up, but I’m just not evolved enough to understand.
Are you sleep deprived enough? Maybe if you pushed yourself a little farther…
I’ve been all proud of myself for being able to get 4-5 hours of sleep each night, but maybe that has shown him I’m not ready.
Part of the This Is My series, documenting meaningful objects in my life.
This pullout couch was in my grandparents’ lakeshore cabin for decades before I was born. Then it was in my parents’ basement for another two decades or so. Then it was in my apartment for a few years. And now it’s gone to couch heaven, after we finally bade it farewell to make better use of the space in our two-bedroom apartment.
It was scratchy, kinda ugly, and an absolute beast to move up three flights of stairs. The mattress was thin, requiring us to add several layers of sleeping bags and mattress pads to make it hospitable enough to the human back.
But it was a free and sturdy couch, with family history, in surprisingly good condition for its age. The cushions are still plump and the pullout bed mechanism as reliable as ever. Having a pullout allowed us to host many guests over the years, which saved them the expense of a hotel room and provided us with lots of invaluable memories.
Odds are likely we’ll get another pullout couch one day, though I doubt whatever we get will last as long as this one. My dad said it best: “Goodbye iconic, hospitable, historic and faithful couch. (Notice I didn’t say comfortable.)”
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently.
A Clockwork Orange. Had been putting this off based on what I’d heard of its disturbing content, but finally bit the bullet for the sake of the AFI 100. Typically impressive Kubrickian cinematography and dark satire.
An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz. Kaleidoscopic narrative of a violent Chicago summer. Kotlowitz embeds with people and families affected by gang violence, illuminating the humanity within tragedy.
Captain Marvel. Brie Larson was a great choice.
Minding the Gap. Stunning.
A Star Is Born. Admire Bradley Cooper’s dedication and Lady Gaga’s talent.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Paired with Sapiens and Homo Deus, this book made me at once immensely proud of humanity and profoundly disturbed by it.
Three Identical Strangers. Wild, stranger-than-fiction story.
Pretty Woman. My first time, despite having seen the “jewelry box laugh” scene and shopping montage as parodied in Dumb and Dumber. This wasn’t ’90s Julia Roberts at her peak, but she was on the way up.
With a photogenic infant at home, I need to make sure my photo backup situation is solid. I decided to start using iCloud since my Dropbox is maxed out and because it so seamlessly integrates with my iPhone. Digging through my photo archive has brought back some nice memories, including photos from a photography class I took junior year of college, 10 years ago now. They might be the last photos I took on an SLR film camera:
Just set a picture of the Boy as the wallpaper on my phone lock screen. The idea was to see him when I use my phone, but I chuckled when I realized what that looks like in practice:
The primary function of my logbook is to document in a Google spreadsheet what I read and watch. But that’s not all it tracks. Among sheets dedicated to typewriters I own and words I like is one that charts my progress through several Top 100 film lists (see above).
I’ve been slowly endeavoring through the AFI 100 since high school. I then added Image’s Arts & Faith Top 100, the Time 100, and recently the Sight & Sound 100. There’s a fair amount of overlap between them, but enough differences for all of them to be useful sources of viewing suggestions.
Here’s where I’m at now on each list:
AFI: 92
Image: 50
Time: 59
BFI: 52
There’s a completist satisfaction in checking off titles and inching closer to 100. Though as close as I am to finishing the AFI list, there are a few remaining titles I’m in no rush to subject myself to, like Intolerance, A Clockwork Orange, and Sophie’s Choice. As with any movie I watch, mood has to align with opportunity and availability. Having lists like these ready to go ensures I always have good options for when the moment is right.
These lists are also great fodder for exploring cinema beyond whatever Netflix or other streaming services decide to make available at any given moment. Besides Kanopy, these services tend to have a recency bias. Everyone, but especially Kids These Days, should be exposed to older and lesser known movies. See Ty Burr’s book The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together for more ideas, or peruse your local library.
An ongoing series on books, movies, and music I’ve encountered recently.
The Baby Bookby William Sears. This has been helpful thus far. Though don’t think we haven’t also randomly Googled things at odd hours.
The Cider House Rules. Filling in the gaps of my 1999 movie viewings. This gets less compelling once Homer leaves the orphanage.
Brazil. I’m always up for a good dystopian satire, but this one feels actively antagonistic toward the idea of being likable.
Saturday Night Fever. I was familiar with this from references in Airplane! and The Simpsons, but I hadn’t actually seen it in full. The dance scenes are oddly mesmerizing, but the sexual politics are quite disturbing.
Terms of Endearment. I’m sorry, I just can’t get into Shirley MacLaine. Debra Winger is the highlight.
Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up by Tom Phillips. Reviewing this for Booklist. It’s like Yuval Harari’s Sapiens by way of a cheeky, crude stand-up comedian.
Since coming home from the hospital with our baby boy, we’ve been alternating between several streaming shows to pass the hours that need passing. Current go-tos include The Office, The Great British Baking Show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Wire.
As much as I like all of them, none give me as much joy as watching Jeopardy! on Netflix. I literally gasped when I discovered it was on there. Finally I could finally skip the awkward contestant small talk and Medicare commercials and just engage in pure, uncut, nonstop trivia.
I found it just in time. The other day the Boy was getting fussy as I was starting an episode. As soon as Alex Trebek’s legendary voice started in on the clues, he calmed down. I’m gonna go ahead and assert that in this instance correlation did equal causation, because Jeopardy! fixes all.
Which makes the news about Trebek’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis that much sadder. The straight-laced optimism and sly humor in his video announcing the news is inspiring and very on-brand. It’s like he’s a Clue Crew member delivering a Video Daily Double:
This is exactly what you’d want and expect from the man who, for 35 years, has hosted the best and smartest game show in existence. Businesslike. Competence exuded through every pore. Cool, professional, authoritative. (It’s what makes his occasional jokes work so well. They’re gems because they’re so rare. They’re earned.) You are not there, in Trebek’s house, for chit-chat. You are there to answer some damn questions. And there is no one on earth better suited to oversee the merciless, no-frills format of Jeopardy! than him.
I got to see Trebek and the show in person. Long may he reign. And may we have mercy on whoever has to eventually replace him.
So excited to receive Over the Rhine’s gorgeous new album Love & Revelation in the mail. I don’t get many CDs these days, so it was a treat to admire the design and new-CD smell:
This album was part of Over the Rhine’s fundraiser from a few years ago my wife and I contributed to. Two more future albums are included in our donation level, along with the treat of getting our names in the liner notes:
In case you haven’t heard, 1999 was a great year for movies. I don’t remember seeing any of them in the theater at the time (I was 12), but I fondly remember watching and rewatching many on VHS and DVD later on.
I really tried to rank them. But the exercise of ranking felt even more futile and arbitrary than usual when I considered all the candidates and how I loved them nearly equally for different reasons. And so:
Top 10 films of 1999 I love nearly equally for different reasons, in alphabetical order
Dick
This gets funnier the more you know about Watergate. Choice scene: Haldeman’s house
As a tween I babysat for a family that owned only a few DVDs, the only interesting one being The Matrix. Since the kids were always in bed by the time I arrived, basically I was paid to watch The Matrix. Choice scene: “I’ve been looking for you, Neo.”
October Sky
Jake Gyllenhaal has been great for a long time. Ditto Chris Cooper, who had quite the one-two punch with this and American Beauty. Choice scene: “He isn’t my hero.”
What could have been a sentimental schlockfest is actually a graceful meditation on redemption and the cosmic importance of the quotidian. Choice scene: “That’s a darn good grabber, Alvin.”
Somewhere on the Internet I stumbled upon this print from the artist Nina Montenegro’s series Against Forgetting:
It struck a chord in me not only because I’ve been reading the tree-centric novel The Overstory, but also because six days ago I became a father. And I’ll tell ya, I know I’m barely a week into this, but there’s nothing like having a child to make you reconsider everything you think you know about time.
