The Looming Question, Summer of 1781

Now on Chapter 3 of Spies, Lies and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. Sooo glad she clipped that review from The Economist. This is just the book self needed to explain the current state of American espionage.

Chapter 3 begins with a history lesson. In the summer of 1781, the fledgling republic of America was in trouble. The Revolutionary War had been raging for six years. And Benedict Arnold, “one of Washington’s ablest generals, had recently betrayed the cause, switched sides, and tried to hand over the rebels’ strategic garrison at West Point . . . money grew tight, and morale was low.” General Washington: “Our affairs were then at the most ruinous train imaginable.”

At this point, self would like to quote that character in Succession (her current favorite show) who advised Roman Roy to “just be water.”

On August 14, Washington saw his chance. “British forces were split into two large contingents. One occupied New York City under the command of Gen. Harry Clinton. The other, about seven thousand men led by Lord Cornwallis, had marched south, capturing Charleston and Savannah before landing in Yorktown, Virginia. If Washington could reach Yorktown before British reinforcements arrived, he could defeat Cornwallis and score a decisive victory.”

(To be continued)

Ragtag Daily Prompt, Last Sunday of April 2023

The prompt today is COLORFUL.

And does self have a picture for you!

Took it a few minutes ago, after exit-ing Century 20, where she watched Sisu, which is so awesome she might not have enough words!

Do you want to watch a movie about a lone man who wipes out a whole company of Nazis? A movie set in Finland? During World War II? Then Sisu is for you! FIVE STARS! I laughed, I cheered! Who knew Finland could produce something so intense, so action-packed, so pulse-pounding? It’s this year’s Road Warrior, this year’s The Raid, this year’s John Wick 3: Parabellum!

This is a flowerbox around the outdoor seating for Quinto Sol, fantastic Mexican restaurant right across the street from Century 20, featuring specialties from Michoacan.

John Wick IV

Keanu, you are self’s forever and ever.

This installment of John Wick was almost three hours long, which she did not expect.

It is a paean to balletic fight moves.

Self had to leave just before the end. Was Keanu channeling Hamlet there.

Self has read some reviews which refer to Keanu as the Baba Yaga.

Umm, no. Keanu, unlike the Baba Yaga, is a man in search of his soul. He desires death. But he is human, therefore he never gets what he wants.

Death is not the answer, John Wick.

Son: Did he kill them all?

Is this a rhetorical question?

Looking back on this actor’s career, self think the best Keanu is action Keanu. He may have the blankest face, but he has moves.

It is known.

“Revenge doesn’t wait for permission.”

This is the tag line for Mother May I, by Joshilyn Jackson, which self found in an article on “Beach Reads” in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal. Of course, since self’s reading list is so unwieldy, she doesn’t actually get to read this novel until it’s almost winter. After the first rains have arrived.

Onward!

The opening is a definite “hook”:

I woke up to see a witch peering in my bedroom window.

She was little more than a dark shape with a predator’s hungry eyes, razor-wire skinny but somehow female, staring in through the partly open drapes. Sunrise lit up the thin, silvery hair that straggled out from under her hat.

Train Reading: London Review of Books, 9 June 2022

Migration is a self-splitting, one note observes; it’s “psychotic to live in a different country for ever.”

— Peter Howarth, in his review of Bhanu Kapil’s poetry collection How to Wash a Heart, “poems addressing the wealthy liberal woman who has taken the speaker, an artist whose immigration status is precarious, into her house.”

Perhaps I can write here again.
A ‘fleeting sense of possibility.’ — K

Sentence of the Day: The Faerie Thorn

The troll was so ugly that the bottom half of Man Donaghy wanted to run away, but the top half of Man Donaghy was so desperate to get rid of New Wife Donaghy that it made the bottom half stay put.

— The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories, by Jane Talbot

By the above, you will have deduced (correctly) that self finally got to the end of The Magician King. The novel started out strong and held self’s interest until about 4/5 of the way through, when Julia’s trauma began to get tiresome. And then, without warning, her story turned nightmarish. This was not the end self had envisioned for a character who was so badass she literally could have wiped the floor with Quentin.

Stay tuned.

Six-Word Saturday: “Routine Medical Examination, Sit and Wait”

Thank you to Debbie at Travel with Intent for hosting the Six-Word Saturday challenge.

Self is in the closing section of Semezdin Mehmehdinovic’s My Heart, his (really quite lovely) meditation on the frailty of the body, on the melancholy of aging, of saying good-bye.

Awesome Book. Five Stars.

It is a triptych: the first third is about his “first heart attack,” at the age of fifty. The middle section is about a road trip he takes with his detached son. The final section is about the after-effects of his wife’s stroke.

Does it sound depressing to you? It sounded depressing to self. At first, she wasn’t sure she wanted to read it. Perhaps she’d just skim.

She was wrong. If the first third didn’t quite grab her, she was glad she stuck with it. By the end of the father-and-son road trip, she was hooked.

The last section is like a love letter to the narrator’s wife, it so tenderly describes the most devastating after-effect of her stroke: her memory loss.

Holding hands, we step into the circular glass door through which I have often passed over the last months. Our moving shadows break up in the glass. The melancholy of late summer. We go up in the elevator to the fourth floor. We’re in the hospital for a routine medical examination. We sit and wait. In the silence, we look at a painting in front of us by an anonymous artist. And then Sanja asks: “Isn’t it a pitiful destiny for an artist for their works to end up on the wall of a doctor’s waiting room . . . ?”

My Heart, p. 223

It’s a book about grief, but it is not depressing.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

M. Night Shyamalan, End of July 2021

Self read one review before watching Old. The review said the film had a silly ending. That didn’t worry self. She knows M. Night Shyamalan movies. At their worst, they’re supernatural hokum. But if he sells it, there is a feeling after watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie that is never there at the end of a Christopher Nolan movie, in self’s humble opinion. And she’s seen almost every Christopher Nolan movie (except Dunkirk)

The young actors and actresses are very, very good. Well, the old ones — especially Rufus Sewell — are good as well. It was nice to see Ken Leung in a movie, and in a kind of crucial role.

This isn’t really a horror movie, but by the end, self was vested.

Okay, there was one development that was borderline ridiculous, and it involves a pregnancy. She wants to talk about it more, but she doesn’t want to drop any spoilers.

This is such a strange movie-watching year. When she tried to think of another recent movie that called forth the same pure joy (despite silliness), the only movie she could think of was Mortal Kombat. Truly, Mortal Kombat made self so nostalgic that when she finally heard the immortal lines “Finish him!” and “Get over here!” she wanted to stand up and cheer!

Stay cool, dear blog readers. Stay cool.

Things Self Liked: A Quiet Place, Part II

John Krasinski, such a sly one: makes a sequel that still puts him on-screen despite his character dying in the first. But it makes complete emotional sense.

This is a very stylish horror movie. Mebbe not Alien level, but still. It’s very stylish.

Another thing that shows Krasinski’s slyness: he introduces us to ugly Cillian Murphy. Think about that for a minute. UGLY CILLIAN MURPHY.

The actress who plays his deaf daughter is absolutely amazing, and there is of course Emily Blunt.

Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt.

Even when she’s running, she looks like a ballet dancer.

Also, the filthiest feet (But why does Cillian Murphy’s character wear boots when EVERYONE ELSE IS BAREFOOT)

Also, clever use of an oxygen tank.

Self loudly gasped at least once.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Lean, Mean, Killing Machine

Jason Statham is back in his own star vehicle, Wrath of Man. The man who The New York Times‘s Michiko Kakutani once called a “bullet-headed looker” is back.

You know who else is back? Josh Hartnett. Yup, that’s right, Josh Hartnett, who self hasn’t seen on the big screen since The Faculty (1998!). When not required to be a heartthrob, the guy can act. Self means, really act.

And you know who else is in this movie? Clint Eastwood’s son Scott Eastwood. Who plays the badest badass she’s ever seen in a movie in a while. The kind of bad guy you’d cheer to see vivisected. Good turn, Scott Eastwood! (From certain angles, she swears she almost thought it was Clint)

The final set-piece, self didn’t think she took a breath once. It was all action, and the action had the remorselessness of a yakuza movie. Or of The Raid.

Who is that actor who plays Jason Statham’s son in the movie? Self has never seen him in her life, but he is well cast. She looks him up later — he has that kind of fey quality some British actors have when very young, but the actor turns out to be from OREGON. Big surprise! Turns out Americans are capable of turning out their own fey, young actors. LOL

There is no “closure,” not really.

Self would say she still liked Mortal Kombat better, since Wrath of Man is so unrelentingly grim. But she liked it ever so much more than Here Today, which put her to sleep.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.