Crows as Cheerful as Saints

Not Doing, But Consuming

The irony: the more we consume, the emptier we are.

One of the most difficult lessons to learn in life, because it is counterintuitive, is that if some is good, more may well be worse, even much worse. The whole of the American consumer advertising industry is dedicated to helping us forget that lesson, if we were ever smart enough to learn it.

Peak Absurdity

So Don't Wait

"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Want Some Good Advice?

And here are two more: avoid people who constantly disturb your peace of mind, and stop trying to fix people who don't want to be fixed.

The Odyssey: Fantasy and Humanity

Bart and I are back from seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which I’m going to compare, oddly enough, to the great Godzilla Minus One. Both films take care to ground their outrageous fantasy elements in understandable, recognizable humanity — thereby making it all work.

Excellent performances and spectacle, with Odysseus facing a parade of hostile wonders. The design of the Cyclops, with his twisted nose and eye, is marvelously creepy. You find yourself feeling a little sympathy even for the Cyclops and Circe, as you glimpse the humanity beneath the monster.

It all builds up to a thundering final fight scene in the king’s palace on Ithaca, and a rumination on what cleverness can cost. It’s three hours absorbingly spent.

Some Lessons to Learn

Numbers one and five seem particularly apt for me.