And the Oscar goes to...

Well, OK, I've only seen three of the nominees for best picture. Arrival? Good entertainment, cool aliens, definitely worth seeing. Best picture? C'mon. La La Land? Pleasantly nostalgic, charmingly incompetent singing and dancing, definitely worth seeing. The theme is pure romantic fantasy in Casablanca mode: love at first sight, sad inevitable separation, we'll always have Paris... or LA... Best picture? Nah. Moonlight? Beautiful filmmaking, understatedly beautiful acting, 21st century realism: Groping forbidden love at first sight, love of low expectations, love as the simple human touch necessary for survival. Best picture? Maybe so.

Song of the day...

... or year... or next four years...

David Brooks disses porcupines everywhere...

"If Reagan’s dominant emotional note was optimism, Trump’s is fear.... It’s not a cowering, timid fear; it’s more a dark, resentful porcupine fear." NY Times.

Having encountered porcupines in the woods now and then over the years, I'd have to say they never strike me as being particularly fearful (why would they be?), let alone dark or resentful. More charming and bumbling. Un-Trumpian.

H is for Hawk

I mostly read fiction books, but "nature" nonfiction attracts my attention now and then. I suppose Helen Macdonald's account of training a goshawk counts as a nature book, but it is much, much more. Macdonald weaves the alien allure of this most extraordinary bird of prey, the craft and lore of falconry, her debilitating grief over the death of her father, the rich human history and uncertain future of the semi-wild English landscape, and a compressed, sad biography of T.H. White into a complete and absolutely compelling work of art. Her powers of description– internal, external, and speculative– are poetic. Funny, insecure, invincible, she invites you into her saga of grief, near-madness, and recovery. Her love for Mabel, her hawk, is all the more remarkable for the fact that, as she eventually concedes, the goshawk is other... inscrutable. Yet there is quite a bit of the goshawk in this woman: her ferocity, her independence, her virtuosity. A masterpiece.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 77

A perfect rock 'n' roll voice fronting a kick-ass band. Rock on, Mauritania!

Millennials for Trump quote of the day

“I really do hope he does what he’s saying, but I’ve been hearing he’s surrounding himself with swampy people.” -NY Times

Song of the day

Inauguration day 2017, that is.

River

The BBC-by-way-of-Netflix series, that is. It's far from perfect. But you'll forgive all the flaws because, as the schizophrenic detective River, Stellan Skarsgård gives one of the greatest character portrayals in TV history. His voice is so lazily mellifluous, I'd be happy just to hear him read the phone book (or Wikipedia). But he also pours every inch of his lanky, stiffly shambling body into the role– it is a complete performance. He gets some excellent support, especially from Nicola Walker, as his main hallucination, and Adeel Akhtar, as his stoical, angelic partner... and the city of London. Overplotted, melodramatic at times, River pushes some heavy themes: lunacy, and loss. But mostly it is about love. And Skarsgård will convince you that love is all that really matters.