What i’m digging

musings on music, film, books, art, and pretty things.

2024

April 2024

24 - Continuing to watch Star Wars episode 8 The Last Jedi. I have been enjoying this arc (starting with episode 6). Our Olders loved Star Wars for a season of their lives earlier, and then around 2017, felt, I suppose, like they’d outgrown out - or rather, wanted to see other types of things. So this is my first time through with episode 8 and (soon) 9. I think we’re all enjoying it. Even the Countess Becca, who finds great delight in ‘accidentally’ confusing Star Wars with Star Trek.

23 - Listening to Robert McCloskey’s timeless 1951 collection of stories about Homer Price. “Don’t turn it off! We’re still listening!”

Bouncing, with our Olders, amongst film-watching and a trio of shows: Brooklyn 99, Gilmore Girls, and now Resident Alien. We recently finished the third Kenneth Branagh interpretation of Agatha Christie’s great detective Hercule Poirot: A Haunting in Venice. Like the last one, Death on the Nile, I love the mix of locales and mingling of characters; I also feel with both that my enjoyment as a whole was less than the sum of its pieces. Great character, some good scenes, not blown away by the wrap-ups.

I return to the series Black Mirror, determined to definitively rank them and be prepared for the upcoming series 6. Dark, dark dark and terrifying in how close we are, how close we live, how much we are dependent on technology and its role that’s baked into virtually every part of our lives and relationships.

Amon Amarth, Swedish death metal singing of Viking sagas, introduced by my friend A—-. Had on heavy rotation.

March 2024

Loving the Vaccines’ latest, Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations. Their cheerful-ish punk-flavored rock rolla keeps enough pop and irresistible hooks to fill up albums worth, while still drawing from some of my faves from the late 70s, late 80s, and early 00s (that respectively respectfully would be Ramones, Jesus and Mary Chain, Franz Ferdinand).

Middle of the month: two weeks to make my way through the Killers’ catalog, full albums beginning to end. The big surprise for me: their last, Pressure Machine, such a gentle turn that’s still them, but brings Springsteen-style storytelling to the forefront and stands up to repeated listens.

Watched May December with Becca. Unsettling.
Watched Past Lives by myself, ready to watch again with Becca. Loved, loved, loved.
Other watches: ongoing Brooklyn 99,
Oppenheimer with Olders. Not only matched, but surpassed my expectations.

04 - Started Star Wars Return of the Jedi with all of us. It’s that season of our lives. Started Oppenheimer with the Olders. In the first 45 minutes, Nolan’s ability to deconstruct this era of history and provide both a personal and a large-scale bird’s eye view is mesmerizing.

Re-reading an old Jeffrey Archer short story anthology Becca brought from the library. It’s a large hardcover edition with illustrations by Paul Cox, and the format has brought me a new level of enjoyment to many of these classic stories.

February 2024

Finished watching Under the Skin.
Some Kind of Wonderful for first time with the Olders. One of my favorite of the ‘80s John Hughes-ish universe rom-coms. 2-17
Star Wars episodes 4 and 5 with all of us. That would be the original (A New Hope) and the excellent The Empire Strikes Back. Our 4-year old thinks Darth Maul is great, as did his now-13yo bro at age four. Our 16yo and 13yo are not impressed with the original trilogy overall (episodes 4-5 so far; their favorite is E2 Attack of the Clones).

January 2024

28 - The Smiths, circa 1984, on a Sunday, with a little Echo & The Bunnymen thrown in (Hatful of Hollow, Ocean of Rain, respectively).

22 - Once upon a time, my daughter and wife started watching Gilmore Girls together while waiting for me and my “one more minute” timeline that is sadly…not infrequently more than one minute, as I’m racing to finish just one more thing or one more piece of work before joining my wife and two Olders for a little bit of evening viewing together. I have enjoyed the bits and bites of seen of it and know the the characters well enough to sort of know what’s transpiring at different points. But when I walked in and saw a certain figure whose identity took me 1.5 seconds to figure out…it was game over. By that, I mean that if I had any idea that Sebastian Bach, all-time great metal vocalist, was a recurring star on Gilmore Girls, then I would immediately have been forced to shut down any viewing of the show not involving me. I took his presence as an invitation from the universe to share two of Skid Row’s greatest hit videos from the 1980s (that was his band). The bittersweet balladry of I Remember You and the great rebellion anthem to close out the decade, 1989’s Youth Gone Wild. My family seemed mesmerized by my curation, so I continued on to one of the decade’s other great metal vocalists, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, and we watched them light up the world with 1982’s You’ve Got Another Thing Coming. So good. Gilmore Girls, Sebastian Bach, Judas Priest. That’s a triad.

21 - I raced through Liu Cixin’s 2008 novel The Three-Body Problem; “race” in the sense that I was sucked into the multiple-era storyline about…Earth, humanity, and their place in the universe(s). Thank you, Ken Liu, for the 2014 translation that made it possible for me, as an English reader, to read.

Things I watch solo in January

Finally finish season 2 of Foundation. I will say it: it is making a case for a place in all-time great science fiction television.

Things Becca and I watched in January

Saltburn. Not a fan. So many aesthetic and performance elements to appreciate, and sometimes dialog, and oftentimes the delicious immersion of Rosamund Pike in her role. But overall? Left me feeling empty; not the sum of its parts, not anything to inspire, to educate, to elucidate, to contribute necessary meaning or context to life, and in the end…something that was entertaining enough to finish once, respect the work that went into it, and then leave behind, not to revisit.

General

A 7- and 4-year old watching Peg + Cat. “There’s lots of things you can learn from it that are good…can we watch it?!”

Attack of the Clones / Anne of Green Gables. Yes, we started both of these on consecutive weekends during an ice storm. Both stories about orphans beginning with An (Anne, Anakin). There are a few differences after that. Our Youngers are thoroughly enjoying tracking the evolution of characters through the Star Wars universe and we are enjoying their enjoyment. Aaaaand…1985’s Anne of Green Gables has held up so, so well. The love of nature and relationships and imagination and learning and…the kindness shown by many, juxtaposed by the pettiness that is alternately cruel and hilarious; yet always infused with a beauty and awareness of life and those who share a space with you on the paths life takes you. Such a beautiful adaptation.

A 16-year old re-reading A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and then handing it over to me to begin; I hand over A Gentleman in Moscow for her to fall in love with for the first time.

I love that. A 13-year old reading The Outsiders for the first time.