• Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read, Viewed: August 2021

4 years ago

Moments of grace: finishing Lois Lowry's "Number the Stars," Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome", and viewing again the 2000 film "Sexy…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read & Viewed: July 2021

4 years ago

What I read—James. M Cain, Galileo—was more memorable than what I viewed—"The Glory Stompers," "Marnie"—during the month of July. The…

  • On Film, Movies, Cinema

Ain’t it cool?!: “John Wick” (2014)

4 years ago

The culture of the exotic, fascinating underworld thrills us in "John Wick," not merely the well-choreographed gun-fu.

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read, Viewed: June 2021

4 years ago

In June, read Cain's "Serenade," watched Bogart's "Sahara" (1943), carefully perused Red Sonja, and erred into surprising reflections on time…

  • On Film, Movies, Cinema

“Collateral” (2004): Notes on Michael Mann and Modern Urban Space

4 years ago

Notes on the debt to "Miami Vice," the treatment of urban space, and stylistic gunplay in Michael Mann's 2004 film…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

May 2021 Reading and Viewing: Glorious Consumption, Indeed

4 years ago

Any month (like May) that includes a viewing of "Miller's Crossing" and a reading of Schiller's "Don Carlos" is a…

  • On Ideas, Concepts, Intuitions

Fred Hyatt: Not Enough Technology Pessimism!

4 years ago

A spirited response enjoining MORE pessimism to Fred Hyatt's Washington Post editorial on technology and democracy

  • On Literature, Books

Satire or Misanthropy? “Solar,” by Ian McEwan

4 years ago

Ian McEwan's 2010 novel "Solar" is a misanthropic retelling of ten years in the life of erstwhile Nobel Prize recipient…

  • Monthly Reading, Viewing Report

Read and Viewed: April 2021

4 years ago

April truly was the cruellest month, but only because I read not a word of T.S. Eliot.

  • Viewing Journal

Joseph Losey’s “Accident” (1967): Elliptical yet fascinating

4 years ago

"Accident" narrates the sexual and professional tensions between an Oxford philosophy professor, his colleague, and his students, in events leading…