keeping up appearances : friday
In honor of the veterans, I didn't go to the office today. Instead, I spent the afternoon at Victrola reading science-type papers. Well, first I read section A of the New York Times until it made me want to slit my wrists (e.g., Krugman's column about the Social Security Donut, "Despite Recent Gains, Conservative Group Is Wary on Direction of Court" [#], "Rove Is More His Old Self at the White House" [#], "Senate Approves Limiting Rights of U.S. Detainees" [#], "Democrats Provided Edge on Detainee Vote" [#], "F.D.A. Reports Reduced Risks With Condoms" [#] ) or at least read film reviews and work through the crossword.
After accomplishing a marginal bit of necessary reading, I went home and tried to watch Law and Order (a very rainy day holiday activity, I thought), but the audio and video were out of sync; so I decided to catch an afternoon matinee.
I saw the Squid and the Whale. It is probably going to be my favorite movie of the year. It was just about perfect: quietly funny and sad and efficient and honest. I could have done with someone else in the William Baldwin role, but in a way, the oddness of casting him may have added something to the film. It written & directed by Noah Baumhach and Wes Anderson is one of the producers, so my loving it is probably not a huge surprise.
Feeling drained by the movie (it's kind of brutal), I needed to recover and thought that fries and a root beer float would do the trick, but instead it just left me feeling a little bit sick (I'm out of practice); so I went home and cooked some rice and vegetables.
Now I'm supposed to go watch the 1970s version of King Kong. It seems a little early to get into the spirit for the winter blockbuster, but it seems like a decent enough plan.
After accomplishing a marginal bit of necessary reading, I went home and tried to watch Law and Order (a very rainy day holiday activity, I thought), but the audio and video were out of sync; so I decided to catch an afternoon matinee.
I saw the Squid and the Whale. It is probably going to be my favorite movie of the year. It was just about perfect: quietly funny and sad and efficient and honest. I could have done with someone else in the William Baldwin role, but in a way, the oddness of casting him may have added something to the film. It written & directed by Noah Baumhach and Wes Anderson is one of the producers, so my loving it is probably not a huge surprise.
Feeling drained by the movie (it's kind of brutal), I needed to recover and thought that fries and a root beer float would do the trick, but instead it just left me feeling a little bit sick (I'm out of practice); so I went home and cooked some rice and vegetables.
Now I'm supposed to go watch the 1970s version of King Kong. It seems a little early to get into the spirit for the winter blockbuster, but it seems like a decent enough plan.
Ugh.