Happy Halloween!

 

Goals 2020 -- October Recap

Well, I did okay for the first half of the month.  Then things went sideways -- with work, as usual.  Should I just give up on goals for the rest of the year?  If ever there was a year that it would be appropriate to do that, this is probably the one!

Columbus Day

Did you know that today is Columbus Day?  I didn't either, until it popped up on my calendar.  Who celebrates Columbus Day anyway?  I don't think I've ever had a job that I get this day off work.

What Columbus Day seems more like to me than anything is the first real day of autumn.  I know technically this happens in late September at the fall equinox, but usually there are a sufficient number of lovely days which occur subsequent to the equinox that it doesn't feel like autumn yet.  By the middle of October, the weather has cooled down, the leaves are changing color if not already drifting groundward, and a piping hot mug of apple cider seems just the thing on a chilly evening.

Our leaves in this particular corner of the state went from green to brown with very little in between, which is always a bit of a disappointment.  But we did have a couple of weeks of perfect weather -- those sunny days, warm but not too hot, with cool evenings that we usually get about three of each year -- so I can't be too upset about the colors.

Movies -- A Recap -- Part VIII

Straight Up is a sweet, funny film about a young man trying to understand his own sexuality.  It sounds heavy, and there certainly are some big and current themes, but it really doesn't feel that way when you watch it.  It's impressive as a debut work, and if you want to spend some time hoping for the best for a lead character -- which is so often hard to do in this era of crime dramas (which I admittedly am digging) -- this is a great and quirky guy to cheer for.

Sea Change was maddening to watch.  We picked it out when we were on a kick of watching adventure documentaries.  Sea Change follows a boyfriend and girlfriend as they navigate their watercraft across the Atlantic from Morocco to Manhattan.  They filmed it themselves.  And it's an amazing journey, but holy cow, it was difficult to watch.  For starters, their boatsmanship is terrible.  What makes you think it's a good idea to take a small rowboat across the ocean when you know basically nothing about boats?  Even beyond just the boat, they demonstrated an astounding lack of preparedness for such a trip.  Also, they kind of seem like horrible people.  I hated them both (but especially him) by about 1/3 of the way through.  Not a fan.

BookendS is another one I didn't like.  Two couples end up trapped in a small apartment during a hurricane.  When one couple reveals that they are swingers, the other woman decides she wants to join the party, so to speak, with her new husband.   Predictably, things don't go as planned.

 

 

 

 

I had seen The Help before, but S had not. I think it was promoted on our Netflix as part of their Black Lives Matter emphasis over the summer, but we found it to be a failure in that context.  The long and short of it is that it fits pretty squarely into the "white savior" narrative.  There is lots you can read about this online, so I'll spare you most of it, but just know that if you're looking for a racial reckoning, you won't find it despite the fact that the strongest (though not the most considered) characters in the movie are the black women.  Please note: none of this is meant to diminish my love of Emma Stone, whom I adore in basically everything I've seen her do and I want her to be my best friend.

Vivarium is weird.  And I didn't really like it.  But I didn't hate it either.  Mostly it creeped me out.  Here's what happens: a young couple goes house hunting.  They find themselves in a weird Stepford-like neighborhood where all the houses are identical (except that they have no neighbors, all the houses are vacant except theirs).  They can't escape, no matter what they try.  Before they know it, a child is delivered to their door in a box.  They struggle through their horrible life with a horrible kid trapped in a horrible purgatory.  Like I said: weird and creepy.

 

Another movie in the adventure documentary series we built for ourselves was Once is Enough. Jeff lost his mom due to complications from obesity, and decided to change his life by running an ultramarathon in Colorado.  It starts a little slow, but ends up being not-too-sickly-sweet, inspiring, and totally worth watching.

S and I are both growing out our hair right now, to varying degrees of success.  S went through a phase where, in my opinion, he looked very much like a mid-1980s Tom Selleck.  Of course the only appropriate thing to do was watch Three Men and a Baby, followed by Three Men and a Little Lady.  Both movies are very much of their time, but remain entertaining in the way that childhood favorites always are.

What I'm Reading Now -- Our Souls at Night

My newest postal book club read was selected by E.  Our Souls at Night is Kent Haruf's final novel; he passed away in 2014.  You may know him from his Plainsong series.  Although this is also set in the small town of Holt, Colorado, and covers some of the same themes, it is a standalone read.

Many moons ago, I either read or listened to Plainsong and its successor, Eventide.  I frankly don't recall much about either of them from a plot perspective, but I do recall liking his tone and pace.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he has in store here!

What I Read -- The Answer Is...

Who doesn't love Alex Trebek?  He's an American treasure! (Except that he's actually Canadian.)

After the recent announcement of his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, he decided he would write a book about himself.  Apparently he had been asked to do this several times in the past, but until his diagnosis he had always refused.

What he came up with when he finally agreed to set down his thoughts is a collection of short stories.  They are chronological, so it reads like a classic memoir in that sense, but the stories are often disconnected from what came before and what follows.  This is not intended to be a criticism.  The short story format makes for a very quick and easy read, which was incidentally exactly what I was looking for when I picked this up.

It does get a little heavier towards the end, when he talks about the possible end of his run on Jeopardy! and, of course, his illness.  But he does all this with an overwhelming sense of happiness and satisfaction with the trajectory of his life that keeps it from being depressing.

In short, this book confirmed every wonderful thing I have ever thought about Alex Trebek.

The Great Gatsby -- Take 2

After much prodding by K, I finally read The Great Gatsby. Twice.

Let me explain.

Upon K's urging, I decided to dive in for some true-classic summer reading.  On my first reading, I started out appreciating the writing, but not being propelled through the narrative.  Frankly, not much happens.  But when things start to go sideways in that NYC hotel room, I couldn't put it down.  That was the turning point for me.

I got to see K back in late June, and we were both their with our copies of Gatsby.  K had a heavily-annotated copy, which she agreed to let me borrow for a second read-through (to make up for my prior educational delinquency).  I thought it would be interesting to see what a real Gatsby expert thought was important.  

I started my second read and got about 25 pages in before discussing my second reading with K.  I said that it was enlightening to see what she thought was important, and how it was different from what I might have marked.  (She also had a lot of comments about the over-arching motifs, so I could tell it was organized in such a way as to identify topics for student papers!)  Anyway, she told me she wouldn't mind if I also annotated it, so I took my red pen ("Red means love!") and went to work.  About 4 weeks later.

For some reason, restarting the book the third time seemed daunting, but eventually I got it done, and it has been returned -- red markings and all -- to its rightful owner.

So, what did I think?

I really liked it!  The writing is excellent.  That should come as a surprise to no one -- that is one of three ways that books typically get "classic" status.  The overarching tale of lost love is timeless.  As the introduction says, it's a good novel and can just be read as a good story, rather than getting caught in the academic aspects of it, if you're not in the mood for that.

One of the things that K told me she loves so much about this book is that every time she reads it, she notices different things and it speaks to her in different ways.  I can definitely see how that is the case, even reading it twice in three months.  That doesn't mean I'm about to go read it again right now (I'm not K, after all), but I could see reading it again in a handful of years and finding different themes.

Goals 2020 -- October Edition

I'm going to take a break from the serious goals and just try to blog a little bit this month.

I have a big backlog of things to blog and it is weighing on my mind.  I'm sure you are stressed out about not having blog posts to read!