Saturday Potpourri
Today I have a gut feeling a worldwide economic crash is coming. Hope I’m wrong.
Headline from nypost.com: “Sarah Palin announces bid for Alaskan congressional seat.” She’s been away from politics ten years. I like her, but I’m leery because she may not have lived up to life in the private sector, and that is a huge negative in my book.
Excerpt from NYP editorial: “In February of 2020, the nation had around 152.5 million total nonfarm employees (the highest number ever). Then came the pandemic, which chopped that number down to near 130.5 million. We’ve since been creeping back up to where we were before — and creeping more slowly as Biden’s policies took effect. And we’re still not there yet: The latest count is 150.9 million total nonfarm employees.”
I’m no fan of Quid Pro Joe, the second most corrupt politician of all-time after Billary, but I don’t think his having expressed a desire to see Putin removed is wrong.
I’ve seen no evidence proving voter fraud was the deciding factor in 2020, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the mainstream media and the upper echelons of the CIA and FBI did everything they could to remove Trump from office. The fact that he was undermined throughout his term makes his accomplishments even more impressive.
Sad headline from foxnews.com: “Police officers shot in line of duty reaches 101, a 43% increase from 2021.”
Jim Jarmusch must have been offered to helm at least one blockbuster, but he continues to go his own way, making odd films that appeal to a limited audience. The closest he has come to a broad commercial movie is Dead Man (1995), a bizarre western starring Johnny Depp, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), starring Forrest Whitaker as a hit man. Last night I watched Paterson (2016), seven days in the life of a creative young couple living in the title city. The husband, a veteran, also happens to be named Paterson. An aspiring poet, he idolizes native son William Carlos Williams. The wife stays home and designs dresses and curtains, bakes cupcakes and repaints area of their modest home. She orders a guitar hawked by Esteban and dreams of becoming a country music star. It’s impossible to tell if either will fulfill any of their dreams, but they are extremely likeable. So conditioned am I to the explosive nature of modern film narratives, that I kept expecting something terrible to occur. Instead, it adheres to “real” life. I love the scene where the protagonist meets a ten-year-old female poet, who reads one of her works to him, and the one where, while sitting before the famous waterfall, he meets a Japanese tourist who is also an admirer of Williams. Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani are excellent in the leads. Barry Shabaka Henley does a nice turn as a bar owner. I did not recognize anyone else in the cast. There are a lot of twins in the screenplay. If it is symbolic, I’m clueless as to what it represents, as usual. 79,000+ users at IMDb have rated Paterson, forging to a consensus of 7.3 on a scale of ten. Made on a budget estimated at five million, it returned more than nine million at the box office. How refreshing to see a work not chock full of action do well… Born in Iran, approaching 40, Farahani now lives in Paris, having been exiled. She was on stage at six and began acting in films at 14. There are 55 titles under her name at IMDb. Here’s a quote attributed to her: “Iranian parents can’t stop their children. They’re just wild — they want to party, they want their rights, they want to paint, they want to dance. No one can stop these new generations coming. That’s why Iran has to open up: it’s like a pot full of hot water, vapor and steam.” May it be so. Here is the couple in character:
Other famous natives of Paterson are: Lou Costello, boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, MLB’s Larry Doby and Allen Ginsberg. Here’s a shot of what Driver’s character is observing, part of the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, subject of one of William Carlos Williams most famous works:
My thanks to the kind folks who purchased and swapped books on this gorgeous day. A lot of weight left the inventory. Here’s what sold: Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II by Charles Glass; the beautifully illustrated Webster’s New World Children’s Dictionary; the equally handsome You Read to Me & I’ll Read to You: Stories to Share from the 20th Century by Janet Schulman; Message from Nam and Heartbeat, both by Danielle Steel; eight books in Russian; and This Side Of Peace: A Personal Account by Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian Palestinian.
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