Your mom's book story made me tear up. Books and reading are sacred. I hoard books with the excuse that if we ever go off the grid at least we have some entertainment.
And YES to the Wedding Singer. I love it for so many reasons ... except for Drew's refusal to trade in her 1998 fashion sensibility and embrace a true 80s style :) Now, please get out of my Van Halen t-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up.
I feel the same way about that story. Those kids just never had something given to them for free like that. What a special day it must have been for them. I know it was special for my mom.
And I am laughing, because Drew’s 90s bob looks just as dated to us now as 80s big hair would.
I'm going to make a very brief attempt to convince you that weight training doesn't have to hurt to be helpful. You can do a program as simple as: a push, a pull, and a squat.
For a push I will suggest a floor press.
For a pull perhaps try a cross-body row.
For a squat do simple body weight squats into a kitchen chair - later on you can weight this and do a goblet squat.
Review and learn the exercises on YouTube or similar source.
Buy pairs of 5 lb, 8lb, and if ambitious 10 lb dumbbells or kettlebells - your choice.
Do 2 or 3 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise. Use a weight that feels somewhat challenging by the last few reps.
Do this twice a week with maximum rest in between.
And that's it. This will take perhaps a quarter-hour twice a week. Doing a little bit is much better than doing nothing. Consistency is the key.
If later you want to add an exercise, the farmer's carry is wonderful for overall body strength. Also, as a weight bearing exercise it will help with maintaining bone density.
Okay, I've said enough and will get back to minding my own business.
Totally agree about the principle, but I’ve watched “My Dinner with Andre” three times and will again I’m sure . While I haven’t the slightest desire to rewatch John Wick.
Couldn't agree more about letting kids read books they actually enjoy! People WANT to learn things that interest them, which is why I know more about the history of Westeros than the history of the country I live in.
And on that note: why, exactly, are history lessons boring? At least here in the UK. History was one of my preferred classes, but that's "preferred", not "favourite": I didn't actively look forward to it, it was just less boring than maths or anything under the "design and technology" banner. History should be easy to make exciting; it's pretty much all wars and power politics and black-swan events. But somehow, it becomes "memorize these useless dates and the exact pecking order of commoners under feudalism". Nobody cares.
I have thoughts about that and I have actually seen it. Albeit at mother’s house because she has a TV/my brother’s Netflix account. (There isn’t much for us but Mother likes when I’m visiting for me to curate her entertainment, the smart TV streaming side being a bridge too far for her; recently after half an hour of “TV research” I duly turned it on to some new Sherlock Holmes thing (not great, looked much like a Hallmark movie like most streaming things, but she liked it) when I brought her her dinner tray, but we found we couldn’t get on. Brother was appealed to. He texted his people. After a bit: daughter’s NYC roommate was currently watching. Cool. Next day, I told Mother, I am going to get supper ready early so we can get in ahead of ******’s roommate!)
So not how Nolan would’ve wanted the movie to be seen.
It held my attention when most movies cannot.
But there was a clunkiness like you could see the gears behind it.
Not necessarily the filmmaker’s fault: it’s a subject we all know well. If you’ve read any related books, you knew that there would be a scene with Einstein and you began to wonder who will they stunt cast as Einstein? You wonder if they will show the young man who acceded to his friend’s request to see the device, and bobbled it … and heroically, instantly accepted his fate and said just study me - just study what happens. There were a lot of other interesting sidelights that could’ve been explored, but were not. Rats! Needed to be longer actually!
How is he going to film the main event, an event long mythologized and made epic? Okay, pretty cleverly.
But other things seemed clunky, or strained (and a little bit of that Hallmark lighting!).
Oppie’s unconventional! He’s not a stiff warmonger! - remember how in that biography we found out he sometimes went about nude? Check, got that in.
Maybe we think about movies and their creation too much. As a result, they don’t seem smooth and perfect as old movies often do. As they would’ve say to my grandfather in law, who would ride into town, pluck a couple chickens at the poultry plant, receive a dime and take it to the movie house, with no preconceptions.
Now you feel like you’re seeing a series of choices made. Starting with: cast the beautiful young man whose name I’ve forgotten - so understandably his visage will make up much of the movie. And we will not tire of seeing his face, but possibly at the expense of plot, and detail.
The political scenes are rendered cartoonishly, but not intentionally so. That just seems to be the best they can do with that sort of thing now.
So I disagree that people won’t rewatch Oppenheimer because it was dark or boring exactly. I think they won’t rewatch it because - frankly - it seems less artful than even serious movies used to. And maybe that wouldn’t suit the modern audience anyway.
We all loved Band of Brothers. Or that documentary about the flag raising on Iwo Jima. Maybe documentary or book re-creations are competition for a movie like Oppenheimer. It can’t just be a character study, it has to replace the nation’s neglected history books. And in fact as I recall we didn’t learn much at all about Oppenheimer himself.
I don’t mean to sound too critical, because it was the only movie I even chose to watch that year, and I watched it all the way through.
Thank you for this! I confess that I quit watching Oppenheimer after about an hour, but you are persuading me to give it another try.
And I agree: I thought that Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima were so powerful and brilliant. And what a fantastic idea Clint Eastwood had, to present the war from two different perspective—and totally different styles and even languages.
DEAR: A woman named Bailey White used to do short slightly magic-realist snapshots of her ordinary “spinster Southern daughter” life on NPR, years and years ago. She taught kindergarten or first grade in her little town, and claimed to hew to an all-Titanic curriculum in teaching reading. Which was probably more true than not, on the magic realism scale, and seemed brilliant to me. Children naturally love the Titanic, according to her.
I greatly enjoyed being read aloud to as a child, but the last teacher who did so, broke me. She read us “Carry On, Mr. Bowditch”. I might possibly enjoy that book now. Or at least the synopsis. I just remember my head getting so heavy and realizing I had missed so much that I didn’t even know halfway through who Mr. Bowditch was, and it was too late. Even now I don’t know, though for one reason or another, the book has been in my hands in the ensuing decades: a seafaring man? or no ... maybe he invented some instrument like a barometer. Or made maps? He’s probably really important. It was one of the edifying Newberrys, like those where a child has to prove his manhood by going out with the sheep or undertaking a voyage in an outrigger. I’m sure Mr. Bowditch had to prove something to somebody.
(I loved that book “Longitude” so if it was about navigation, that shouldn’t necessarily have been a stopper.)
Now I once again love being read to, but it’s partly because my eyes get very tired and so I manipulate my husband into doing so. (People love to read aloud.) He’s a word skipper though (that’s right, edit the great and famous, go right ahead!). And if it’s something I’ve already read, I will notice and call him out - “you left out ‘as the occasion required’” or “you left out ‘with a lowering look’” or “‘hitherto’ - “what?” - you left out ‘hitherto’” - which creeps him out and lends an edge to the proceedings.
As for exercise, I wish I could, but it’s hard to start something totally new later in life. My exercise as such was always solitary: doing the yard or walking for my errands or painting the house or whatever other activity kept me bustling about. I tended not to sit still.
But I seem unable to do work in the caloric sense without … work. Yesterday I set out to swim 10 -just 10 - laps in the pool. We’re not talking an Olympic size pool. An apartment pool. I did four and felt winded, and bored.
I find when I go on long walks nowadays that I’m often thinking about my gait or my hips or whether I’m “pronating” my bunions. I try to do like my exercising friend told me and imagine a string is pulling my pelvis forward while I remain erect.
And: walking now reliably makes me feel I have to go to the bathroom!! Even though I really don’t! Troop back in. Start over.
I never used to think about my body or bladder when I was younger, did not know the word “pronating”, and certainly didn’t ponder “how to walk” and spend hours reading reviews of footwear.
Now I’m always sort of “favoring” one body part or another.
Despite my excuses, I’m not totally happy about this situation. Give me a job and I am all in. But there are fewer jobs to do at present …
We are about to drive out to the Sierra Nevadas, which I have never seen, not even close. Gas is high, which is unfortunate but we’re hoping may mean there a fewer other road trippers overall, and space in the campgrounds. On the other hand, it may incentivize fewer people to fly, which might make for more road trippers.
I will get a chance to test myself against the mountains 😀.
I love this comment and am convinced we would be great friends if we met in real life. “Pronating my bunions” made me laugh, because aging brings so many changes, not all of them earth-shattering.
I read that book about Bowditch too. Maybe he invented the sextant? No, that can’t be right. Sextants have to have been around for millennia. Ah well. I remember enjoying the book too.
I really love Life of Pi! I think it is the last “grownup” book I read. I e spent many years now reading young adult fiction and fantasy books or nonfiction, but Life of Pi was really great.
I really, really loved that book. It actually delivers on the promise at the beginning: It is a book that gives you reason to believe in God. And it’s an exciting, enchanting story too.
I haven’t actually seen Twister, and I’ve never revisited Tremors. But I’m pretty sure it’s great. It has a mighty theme like Snoopy recommends for the production of great novels. Something is making West Texas shake!
Tremors is awesome. It has an exciting storyline that doesn't take itself too seriously. I guess it's a dramady: not an outright comedy, but you chuckle a lot while watching it.
Your mom's book story made me tear up. Books and reading are sacred. I hoard books with the excuse that if we ever go off the grid at least we have some entertainment.
And YES to the Wedding Singer. I love it for so many reasons ... except for Drew's refusal to trade in her 1998 fashion sensibility and embrace a true 80s style :) Now, please get out of my Van Halen t-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up.
I feel the same way about that story. Those kids just never had something given to them for free like that. What a special day it must have been for them. I know it was special for my mom.
And I am laughing, because Drew’s 90s bob looks just as dated to us now as 80s big hair would.
I'm going to make a very brief attempt to convince you that weight training doesn't have to hurt to be helpful. You can do a program as simple as: a push, a pull, and a squat.
For a push I will suggest a floor press.
For a pull perhaps try a cross-body row.
For a squat do simple body weight squats into a kitchen chair - later on you can weight this and do a goblet squat.
Review and learn the exercises on YouTube or similar source.
Buy pairs of 5 lb, 8lb, and if ambitious 10 lb dumbbells or kettlebells - your choice.
Do 2 or 3 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise. Use a weight that feels somewhat challenging by the last few reps.
Do this twice a week with maximum rest in between.
And that's it. This will take perhaps a quarter-hour twice a week. Doing a little bit is much better than doing nothing. Consistency is the key.
If later you want to add an exercise, the farmer's carry is wonderful for overall body strength. Also, as a weight bearing exercise it will help with maintaining bone density.
Okay, I've said enough and will get back to minding my own business.
This is helpful! Thank you for the clear, specific, and manageable instructions. Who knows? I might even give it a try!
Totally agree about the principle, but I’ve watched “My Dinner with Andre” three times and will again I’m sure . While I haven’t the slightest desire to rewatch John Wick.
I’m with you! I have never watched a single John Wick movie and have no desire to. I have only seen My Dinner with Andre once though.
Couldn't agree more about letting kids read books they actually enjoy! People WANT to learn things that interest them, which is why I know more about the history of Westeros than the history of the country I live in.
And on that note: why, exactly, are history lessons boring? At least here in the UK. History was one of my preferred classes, but that's "preferred", not "favourite": I didn't actively look forward to it, it was just less boring than maths or anything under the "design and technology" banner. History should be easy to make exciting; it's pretty much all wars and power politics and black-swan events. But somehow, it becomes "memorize these useless dates and the exact pecking order of commoners under feudalism". Nobody cares.
Our son majored in history and agrees with you completely! History is the thrilling story of humanity itself, after all!
Oppenheimer:
I have thoughts about that and I have actually seen it. Albeit at mother’s house because she has a TV/my brother’s Netflix account. (There isn’t much for us but Mother likes when I’m visiting for me to curate her entertainment, the smart TV streaming side being a bridge too far for her; recently after half an hour of “TV research” I duly turned it on to some new Sherlock Holmes thing (not great, looked much like a Hallmark movie like most streaming things, but she liked it) when I brought her her dinner tray, but we found we couldn’t get on. Brother was appealed to. He texted his people. After a bit: daughter’s NYC roommate was currently watching. Cool. Next day, I told Mother, I am going to get supper ready early so we can get in ahead of ******’s roommate!)
So not how Nolan would’ve wanted the movie to be seen.
It held my attention when most movies cannot.
But there was a clunkiness like you could see the gears behind it.
Not necessarily the filmmaker’s fault: it’s a subject we all know well. If you’ve read any related books, you knew that there would be a scene with Einstein and you began to wonder who will they stunt cast as Einstein? You wonder if they will show the young man who acceded to his friend’s request to see the device, and bobbled it … and heroically, instantly accepted his fate and said just study me - just study what happens. There were a lot of other interesting sidelights that could’ve been explored, but were not. Rats! Needed to be longer actually!
How is he going to film the main event, an event long mythologized and made epic? Okay, pretty cleverly.
But other things seemed clunky, or strained (and a little bit of that Hallmark lighting!).
Oppie’s unconventional! He’s not a stiff warmonger! - remember how in that biography we found out he sometimes went about nude? Check, got that in.
Maybe we think about movies and their creation too much. As a result, they don’t seem smooth and perfect as old movies often do. As they would’ve say to my grandfather in law, who would ride into town, pluck a couple chickens at the poultry plant, receive a dime and take it to the movie house, with no preconceptions.
Now you feel like you’re seeing a series of choices made. Starting with: cast the beautiful young man whose name I’ve forgotten - so understandably his visage will make up much of the movie. And we will not tire of seeing his face, but possibly at the expense of plot, and detail.
The political scenes are rendered cartoonishly, but not intentionally so. That just seems to be the best they can do with that sort of thing now.
So I disagree that people won’t rewatch Oppenheimer because it was dark or boring exactly. I think they won’t rewatch it because - frankly - it seems less artful than even serious movies used to. And maybe that wouldn’t suit the modern audience anyway.
We all loved Band of Brothers. Or that documentary about the flag raising on Iwo Jima. Maybe documentary or book re-creations are competition for a movie like Oppenheimer. It can’t just be a character study, it has to replace the nation’s neglected history books. And in fact as I recall we didn’t learn much at all about Oppenheimer himself.
I don’t mean to sound too critical, because it was the only movie I even chose to watch that year, and I watched it all the way through.
Thank you for this! I confess that I quit watching Oppenheimer after about an hour, but you are persuading me to give it another try.
And I agree: I thought that Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima were so powerful and brilliant. And what a fantastic idea Clint Eastwood had, to present the war from two different perspective—and totally different styles and even languages.
I’ve never seen the Japanese side one! I will look for that.
The book was great too for those who prefer text.
DEAR: A woman named Bailey White used to do short slightly magic-realist snapshots of her ordinary “spinster Southern daughter” life on NPR, years and years ago. She taught kindergarten or first grade in her little town, and claimed to hew to an all-Titanic curriculum in teaching reading. Which was probably more true than not, on the magic realism scale, and seemed brilliant to me. Children naturally love the Titanic, according to her.
I greatly enjoyed being read aloud to as a child, but the last teacher who did so, broke me. She read us “Carry On, Mr. Bowditch”. I might possibly enjoy that book now. Or at least the synopsis. I just remember my head getting so heavy and realizing I had missed so much that I didn’t even know halfway through who Mr. Bowditch was, and it was too late. Even now I don’t know, though for one reason or another, the book has been in my hands in the ensuing decades: a seafaring man? or no ... maybe he invented some instrument like a barometer. Or made maps? He’s probably really important. It was one of the edifying Newberrys, like those where a child has to prove his manhood by going out with the sheep or undertaking a voyage in an outrigger. I’m sure Mr. Bowditch had to prove something to somebody.
(I loved that book “Longitude” so if it was about navigation, that shouldn’t necessarily have been a stopper.)
Now I once again love being read to, but it’s partly because my eyes get very tired and so I manipulate my husband into doing so. (People love to read aloud.) He’s a word skipper though (that’s right, edit the great and famous, go right ahead!). And if it’s something I’ve already read, I will notice and call him out - “you left out ‘as the occasion required’” or “you left out ‘with a lowering look’” or “‘hitherto’ - “what?” - you left out ‘hitherto’” - which creeps him out and lends an edge to the proceedings.
As for exercise, I wish I could, but it’s hard to start something totally new later in life. My exercise as such was always solitary: doing the yard or walking for my errands or painting the house or whatever other activity kept me bustling about. I tended not to sit still.
But I seem unable to do work in the caloric sense without … work. Yesterday I set out to swim 10 -just 10 - laps in the pool. We’re not talking an Olympic size pool. An apartment pool. I did four and felt winded, and bored.
I find when I go on long walks nowadays that I’m often thinking about my gait or my hips or whether I’m “pronating” my bunions. I try to do like my exercising friend told me and imagine a string is pulling my pelvis forward while I remain erect.
And: walking now reliably makes me feel I have to go to the bathroom!! Even though I really don’t! Troop back in. Start over.
I never used to think about my body or bladder when I was younger, did not know the word “pronating”, and certainly didn’t ponder “how to walk” and spend hours reading reviews of footwear.
Now I’m always sort of “favoring” one body part or another.
Despite my excuses, I’m not totally happy about this situation. Give me a job and I am all in. But there are fewer jobs to do at present …
We are about to drive out to the Sierra Nevadas, which I have never seen, not even close. Gas is high, which is unfortunate but we’re hoping may mean there a fewer other road trippers overall, and space in the campgrounds. On the other hand, it may incentivize fewer people to fly, which might make for more road trippers.
I will get a chance to test myself against the mountains 😀.
I love this comment and am convinced we would be great friends if we met in real life. “Pronating my bunions” made me laugh, because aging brings so many changes, not all of them earth-shattering.
I read that book about Bowditch too. Maybe he invented the sextant? No, that can’t be right. Sextants have to have been around for millennia. Ah well. I remember enjoying the book too.
Good luck in the mountains!
I really love Life of Pi! I think it is the last “grownup” book I read. I e spent many years now reading young adult fiction and fantasy books or nonfiction, but Life of Pi was really great.
I really, really loved that book. It actually delivers on the promise at the beginning: It is a book that gives you reason to believe in God. And it’s an exciting, enchanting story too.
Pride and prejudice, Twister (Bill Paxton!) and Top Gun!
One man’s Twister is another man’s Tremors.
I haven’t actually seen Twister, and I’ve never revisited Tremors. But I’m pretty sure it’s great. It has a mighty theme like Snoopy recommends for the production of great novels. Something is making West Texas shake!
I have never seen it either, but you’re making me curious!
Tremors is awesome. It has an exciting storyline that doesn't take itself too seriously. I guess it's a dramady: not an outright comedy, but you chuckle a lot while watching it.
Great choices! I also like the Twister remake with Glen Powell.