A Movie
Self is back from watching Starting Out in the Evening. My God, what a great movie. Probably the best movie self has seen all year. Self must admit that after an hour she was checking her watch and wondering: How much more of this writerly angst can self watch? It turns out the story goes to some veeeery unexpected places. Kudos to Frank Langella as seventy-ish (but still magnetic) writer; Lili Taylor as complex and magnetic daughter/ dancer/ woman racing against biological clock; Lauren Ambrose as callow Ivy League grad student, so ready with flattery to insinuate herself into great man’s inner sanctum; and Adrian Lester as Lili Taylor’s magnetic and driven boyfriend. Each one of them, self feels, should be recognized with Academy Award nominations. Kudos to the screenwriter, kudos to the director, Andrew Wagner, for making such a great movie out of the Brian Morton novel.
Home Alone
Self gets home, and the boys are gone. Andrew is driving friend Nick to Emeryville, where Nick’s dad works. Self not too enamored of Nick the evangelist. He seems to expect to be served. Wants self to hand him the plate, that sort of thing. Is this how his (Christian) mom treats him? Wow, this is something new to self! Thank God house is empty when self gets back from the movie, and all she has to do is wash the dirty dishes the boys have left in the sink.
Next, the New York Times
Okey-dokey, now to continue reading yesterday’s New York Times. Self is on the Opinion page, and here is what she reads:
* The economy faces a vicious downward spiral of foreclosures, declining property values and mounting losses on mortgage-backed securities and and related financial assets.
Uh-oh. Self feels compelled to read on:
* The resettling of interest rates on more than 2 million subprime loans will prompt a large number of foreclosures, perhaps a million a year in both 2008 and 2009.
Even worse uh-oh. What are self and hubby to do? In the next year, that is?
* These huge waves of foreclosures will depress the price of residential real estate still further.
Eeeek! Self reads on:
* Plummeting real estate values and escalating foreclosures will cause further losses on mortgage-related securities and will further burden American consumers already dealing with higher energy prices and substantial debt.
Okey-dokey, self thinks that is quite enough of the New York Times today. Self looks to see who authored the article and finds that it is Laura Tyson, “a professor of business and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.
Kanlaon 