GRIZZLY PEAR
I seem to focus on everything around the characters.
Yet again, gorgeous art in high definition.
Graphical stylized backgrounds.
Intriguing raw linework.
And a clean concise story.
A modern movie would have added a half hour with two extra codas.
But this classic tells a clean concise caper love story.
Even though I dread the prospect of picking up after one hundred and one dalmatians.
䷅䷃
Shoutout to one of my favorite authors in childhood – screenwriter Bill Peet.
I was underwhelmed when I watched it a few years ago.
I wasn’t overwhelmed this time.
But I enjoyed it.
I still can’t shake my distaste of monarchical systems.
But I appreciated this story of growing up into responsibility.
And it resonates more with a growing boy in the house.
Plus, it’s gorgeous.
Especially this spectacular rendition of I Just Can’t Wait to be King.
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Chalk up another #win for Disney+ high def.
I might end up a fan of musicals soon enough!
If you’re a fan of mid-century aesthetics, this is a must-watch.
If you enjoy the occasional surreal animation, it’s got that too.
(Check out Blame it on the Samba).
I didn’t watch this as a kid.
Most likely better to skip this on a grainy VHS tape.
It was a treat to watch this on a big screen TV in high def.
Too bad my kids won’t enjoy this for the first time as adults.
I wonder what they will enjoy in thirty-five years.
Will their aesthetic pleasures follow mine?
Most likely the opposite.
䷽
The quantity of cheap entertainment at our fingertips continues to boggle my mind. Even without Disney+ I’d still have the world of YouTube. But high def, guaranteed curation, and no ads are worth a small tax to the Mouse.
I listened to the BBC Radio presentation of this short story by Neil Gaiman.
I have an up and down opinion of his work.
I’m a huge fan of the Sandman series and have reread the series a few times and plan to reread them soon.
During college, I was also a fan of his novels, Neverwhere and American Gods. However, I reread them a couple years ago and realized that I don’t enjoy his prose.
I adore his inventive worldbuilding, but his writing came off stiff in the repeat. Gaiman is the first author where I’ve soured on their prose. I’ve ready plenty of bad authors, but none who I liked enough reread their books a two decades apart.
Fortunately, Chivalry doesn’t have this problem. It’s a cute short story, set in a lovely little world, and doesn’t overstay its brief welcome.
Even if I’ve soured on his novels, it’s hard to go wrong in 45 minutes. It’s a charming piece with an insightful introduction sharing nuggets on the difficulties of a professional author.
Well worth a listen.
How can a first (and last) time author write so beautifully?
A lifetime of thinking.
About life and death.
And doing.
Masters in English Lit.
Then becoming a Doctor, Neurosurgeon.
The book is a powerful, emotional memoir.
A reminder that our days are not guaranteed.
Easy living won’t last forever.
And the dying.
What brutally high cost for living.
䷩䷂
This weekend, Jonathan Tjarks, a 34 year-old basketball reporter, passed away from cancer after writing this beautiful, haunting essay in March.
And Risk Parity Radio posted an episode about dying.
The media gods clearly want me to examine mortality, which has never been a big concern before.
Let’s see where this goes.
This thing has great reviews, critically and popular.
I must be missing something.
Stiff dialog and a convoluted plot gummed up the spectacle.
I really wanted to like this movie, but I don’t get it.
Is it great for a Marvel Movie?
Maybe it’s being graded on a curve?
But wouldn’t be very Asian.
Even ABC.
Of course the music is great.
But it used to be accompanied by grainy VHS images on a small CRT.
Now, high definition streaming on the in-law’s 75″ TV.
The main characters are much as I remember.
But those backgrounds.
Now you can tell when the animators went for a sharp line.
Or meant to create texture.
Such detail!
Intoxicating!
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Fantasia fit perfectly with our recent obsession with music animation. I’m question our new dinner habits. But at least this is highbrow stuff.
Disney+ has a quirk where their volume plays much quieter than other streaming channels. So we finally hooked up the TV to the amplifier. Now we have high quality sound to go with the high def image.
Living the high life.
Delightful musical with psychedelic imagery.
The high def animation is a dream to watch on the big TV.
But the pacing was a little slow.
This seventy year old film doesn’t pander to my thrill-a-minute youtube cravings .
(Breaking into song don’t work like it used to).
But this is one of my favorite books and an excellent adaptation.
A fitting start for our new Disney+ subscription.
䷕䷙
I don’t know if it’s good to have such great TV experiences, but I’ll enjoy it while we continue to indulge.
I’ll happily watch it again if the kids ask for it, but their catalog is so large that I’d be surprised if we repeat anything soon.
And yes, we’ll be paying the Disney tax for a long, long time.
Grain Elevators are tall trucks
that let the road
approach them
I’ve always been a prose guy.
(More Pentateuch than Psalms.)
But I’ve always held the nag that I need to get into poetry (along with Jazz and Russian novels).
This is as good a start as any.
Short poems.
Straight to the point.
Haikus + Americana.
I’ve tried writing some myself, when I started this blog.
I bought this book around that time.
But buying and reading are different things.
So here I am, a decade later.
Not sure if I grok poetry any better.
That will be a matter of trying.
Again and again.
Reflected upsidedown
in the sunset lake, pines,
Pointing to infinity
As for this book itself.
Jack successfully taps into the vividness of Haiku.
It’s a snapshot of mid-century America.
Unfortunately it’s also a snapshot of Jack’s unraveling.
I need to revisit this book in a few months.
Maybe I’ll better enjoy the art when I’ve become inured to his sad story.
Desk cluttered
with mail—
My mind is quiet
At the turn of the century, there was a fad of cheeky comic books covering non-fiction subjects.
This one uses a gimmick of the Caterpillar teaching Alice in Wonderland.
This conceit works surprisingly well for a broad overview of Indian and East Asian thought.
It is awkward to read such books as an advanced beginner.
I’m not a bewildered neophyte, the intended audience.
But I don’t know enough to judge the veracity of the work.
However, it turned out to be a great moment to read this book.
It’s tough to jump into a new subject.
A pure beginner confronts too much information all at once.
But every book embeds a bias, especially the basic ones.
With a little familiarity, you can better converse with the author.
So a student should (re)visit an introductory text after some study.
I used this tactic when learning to bake bread.
After reading every baking book at the library, I could discern implicit instructions.
So I could mine the most basic cookbooks for their unwritten assumptions.
The hard part is humbling myself to open an beginner’s book.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t picked up a cookbook in years.
䷞䷬
The graphics in this book haven’t aged well, but that wasn’t the point. These books were designed to be appetizing at the time of publication. Given the extent of the series, I’d say they worked.
I got this book at the Spring Valley Friends of the Library bookstore along with several volumes. This is the first that I’ve read. I should get onto the rest of them.