Anatomy of a Fall Did he jump or was he pushed? Exciting courtroom drama through a French perspective. The mom is so German, aloof and selfish. Guilty! Someone give the kid an Oscar. And the dog too. Society of Snow Powerful, elegant, inspiring. Instead of going for a Lord of the Flies angle where the…
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
This is a book about Big Ideas and I enjoyed it immensely. The author Naomi Klein is persistly confused with Naomi Wolf — “Other Naomi” — who is now a red-pilled conspiricst living in the Mirror World.
Terminator 1 and 2
It’s a little jarring that the post-nuclear wasteland introduced in Terminator 1 is set in Los Angeles 2029, just five years from now. And that the premise is based on artificial intelligence: Skynet invented the Defense Network Computers that were programmed to acquire exponential knowledge. Faced with a shut down when their human masters saw…
Rideshare Talk
Jan 7, 2024. Driver tells me he went to Hollywood High. Said that Rami Malik was his substitute teacher. He was an actor then but hadn’t yet made it big and often had the kids practice lines with him. Rami’s big break was the HBO WW2 miniseries The Pacific. I mentioned that the Chili Peppers…
Top 10-ish Books
These books changed my life. I intend to re-read them and give report.
The Mythology of Wheat
Ukraine is blessed with fertile “black earth” that makes the country the breadbasket to much of the world, both now and in ancient times. The ancient Greeks cultivated groves of olives which they turned into olive oil. They able to devote vast tracts of land to a non-essential crop, like olives, because they were importing…
Top 10-ish Movies
Are they as good as I remember them being? I’ll rewatch to see if they hold up. This is an iterative list, regularly curated and updated. So many movies, so little time. (No particular order.)
Top 10-ish Albums
Truth is that now I mostly listen to playlists, not to albums. What I’m doing here is revisiting albums that I loved at various points in my life. Will they stand the test of time? Let’s find out.
The BlackJack Theory of LIfe
We may think that BlackJack is a game of chance. We would be wrong. What a casino game can teach us about life.
Conductors Love Mahler
Movie maestros and the LA Phil conductors are united in their adoration of Gustav Mahler’s nine symphonies. No complaints here.