Saturday
RIP beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary, 104. Born in Oregon in 1916, she worked as a librarian before turning to writing. 91 million copies of her books have sold worldwide since her first was published in 1950. She received several honors: National Book Award (1981), Newbery Medal (1984), Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (1975). Statues of her characters — Henry Huggins, the Hugginses’ dog Ribsy, and Ramona Quimby — can be found in The Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden for Children in Portland’s Grant Park. The elementary school she attended has been named after her. Her books have put money in my pocket via my curbside dog and pony show. Thank you, madam. (Facts from Wiki)
Friday night’s movie fix courtesy of Netflix by mail was a Coen brothers title I’d neglected, Intolerable Cruelty (2003). They tackle divorce in their madcap, over the top way. It is strictly black comedy, the violence much less than in some of their films, body count of one. I was not bored but not satisfied either, especially by the ending. The cast is stellar: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Bob Thornton, Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Herrmann, Richard Jenkins and Julia Duffy. Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone and John Romano share screenplay credit with the dynamic duo. The flick was successful at the box office, returning $120 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. 92,000+ users at IMDb have rated it, forging to a consensus of 6.2 on a scale of ten. I’d guess its appeal is restricted to fans of the brothers, of broad farce, and those made cynical by the ugliness of divorce. Curious, I researched the marital history of the aforementioned. Joel and Ethan have each been married a single time for years, as has been Zeta-Jones, Duffy, Cedric, Jenkins and Rush. Clooney has one divorce on his docket. The late Herrman had one. Billy Bob has been married six times.
Headline from newsmax.com: “Taiwan Reports Largest-Ever Incursion by Chinese Air Force.” With Trump out of the way, I wonder if China will be emboldened and overrun the small island country it considers its own.
So far Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas have banned transgenders from competing in women’s sports. Kudos.
The left is urging retaliation against Georgia’s new voting law. No one will be surprised if MLB caves and moves the annual all-star bore-fest from Atlanta, but it will be so interesting to see how the PGA handles the heat regarding The Masters. I’d rather see it cancelled than moved from Augusta National.
Here’s an interesting though unsurprising headline from foxnews.com: “Drug overdoses an unintended consequence of COVID stimulus payments.”
It was a perfect day for doing business curbside. My thanks to the gentleman who bought three books in Russian, and to the other who selected one; and to the woman who overcompensated me for a translation of The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck and A Gentleman in Moscow, a novel by Amor Towles; and to Monse`, who took home two oldies CDs and a self help book; and to the gentleman who did a swap of yoyos and a hand grip strengthener for two CDs; and to the woman who purchased the strengthener; and to the young cutie who, perhaps assuming I’m poor, gave me a McDonald’s crispy chicken sandwich, which I just devoured.
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