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| The birthday boy |
It’s time to catch up with the blogger.
The keyboard on my laptop is filthy, as if it has been dragged through muddy gravel. The screen is not exactly shiny either. Everything works though I’ll probably get a new computer after the holidays. This one is five and half years old. Maybe I should clean it in the meanwhile.
Do you understand bitcoin or crypto currency? I don’t either. Then again I have trouble understanding the stock market. One thing I know about "the market" is that’s no way to measure a country’s economic health. It only tells you how the well-to-do are doing. They’re generally fine and the real concern is how the have-nots are faring. Anyway I was talking about crypto currency, I wish it would go away.
Sight & Sound’s greatest films list will be announced later today. It only comes out every ten years which makes it kind of a big deal, The people who vote on it (critics and directors) are people who tend to know a good motion picture from a bad one. Put it this way, it’s more meaningful than the People’s Choice Awards. In 2012 Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) topped the list (as opposed to anyone else’s Vertigo). It’s a film I greatly admire but dropped out of my top 100 after my last viewing. It's not even my favorite film of 1958, Elevator to the Gallows is. Coincidentally, I watched it yesterday. Louis Malle's directorial debut. Amazing picture. If you’re interested (and why wouldn’t you be?) this part of the sentence links to my top 100 films of all time. As you’ll note, it’s followed by a long list of other films I love.
Today is Woody Allen’s 87th birthday. He recently completed his 50th film as a director. It’s a shame the way that the Farrow’s have besmirched his name. Here’s a quote from a tweet by Bob Weide: “The Farrow Industrial Complex® wants you to believe he did terrible things 30 years ago, but it’s provably untrue.” I’ve written about this before and have linked this sentence to my most comprehensive piece on his innocence. I’ll be watching one of Woody’s films later today in recognition of his birthday.
As I write these words (and the ones immediately preceding it and likely the ones to soon follow) it’s raining here in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is joyous news as we are in the midst of a historic drought. People will complain about the precipitation because, well they can be idiots at times (myself included). I’ve written about my love of rain and hatred of droughts here before so if you’re a regular reader of this blog (like Nanchez Kittyhawk of Frankenmuth, Michigan) you’re familiar with my diatribes on the subject.
I also note by a glance at the calendar that this is the first day of December, my favorite month. My love of Christmas is also a well-worn topic on the this blog (maybe I should start covering some new ground). I imagine I’ll be discussing the Yule season in the coming days.
The World Cup is in full swing and for the first time since I was child I’m ignoring it as best I can. I have a great love of proper football and seeing it played at the highest level. But this world cup is an embarrassment to the sport. Qatar should never have been awarded the tournament (it took bribes to accomplish) because of it’s abominable human rights record, low lighted by the abuse of migrant workers and abhorrent policies towards LBGTQ people. Never mind that Qatar is not a known footballing nation and an infrastructure had to be built from scratch (at the cost of some lives) to host the cup. What a joke. I wait anxiously for the return of the Premier League on Boxing Day. (For more on the corruption within FIFA see FIFA Uncovered, a four-part documentary, on Netflix.)
Meanwhile work continues apace on novel number three. This week marks two years that I’ve been working on it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope to have the manuscript ready before our April trip to Europe. I’m quite excited about the book and hope it will eventually reach a wide audience.
Okay, time to put this up for your reading pleasure. Thanks as always for reading this far (someone did, I assume). More anon.
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