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Monthly Archives: November 2021

A Boy Called Christmas

Saturday, November 27, 2021

There are many B-grade Christmas movies, of course (and lots of A-grade ones as well). But not all the B-grade ones have a cast that includes Maggie Smith and Jim Broadbent. The B-grade budget is apparent in some of the sets. But some of the Old World scenery is gorgeous, filmed in Finland, the Czech […]

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The Rose

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and so the Christmas season begins. As a heathen and pagan, I prefer the word Yule. If we set aside the centuries-long war on Yule by the church, then some pretty nice hard-to-kill things remain — yule fires, lights, greenery, feasting, gift-gifting, conviviality, and, most of all, music. The best Yule music, […]

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Radish sprouts

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Radish sprouts are my new favorite sprouts. They’re also one of the healthiest kinds of sprouts you can eat, very high in antioxidants. They do have a fairly strong flavor, though. Not everyone likes them. If you don’t like radish sprouts raw, they work very nicely in stir-fries. They’re almost as big as mung bean […]

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Winter greens

Saturday, November 20, 2021

I wish I had started experimenting with winter greens in a cold frame a long time ago. This mustard was planted in early October and is now ready to start picking. I’ve decided to make a little ritual of it, though, and have the first winter mustard on Thanksgiving. For comparison, I’ve also got some […]

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Fiona Hill for president!

Friday, November 19, 2021

There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century. Fiona Hill, Mariner Books. 432 pages. I rarely read political memoirs, but I made an exception for Fiona Hill. She made a strong impression on millions of people during the House impeachment hearings of 2019. She was a visible example of the kind […]

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Self-defense?

Thursday, November 18, 2021

A right-wing protester at a Trump rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Sept. 1, 2020. Source: Wikipedia. Farhad Manjoo, in a column this morning in the New York Times, draws attention to a novel right-wing claim of self-defense, in which a right-winger with a gun points the gun at unarmed people, then claims self-defense out of fear […]

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The intelligentsia and civil war

Monday, November 15, 2021

Etel Adnan in Marin County, California. Photo by Simone Fattal. Source: EtelAdnan.com. The New York Times carried an obituary this morning for Etel Adnan, who died yesterday in Paris at the age of 96. I was saddened to hear this, because I knew Etel and her partner, Simone Fattal, during their Sausalito years, when I […]

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New from Acorn Abbey

Sunday, November 14, 2021

The newest title from Acorn Abbey Books will be released on December 30. The book is The Outnation: A Search for the Soul of Japan. This is a new edition (with a new foreword) of the book, which was first published in 1992 by the Harvard Business School Press. The author, Jonathan Rauch, is an […]

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Louis Wain

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Cat fans — not to mention fans of Benedict Cumberbatch — will want to see “The Electric Life of Louis Wain.” Louis Wain (1860-1939) was the late Victorian artist who charmed the world with his paintings and drawings of anthropomorphized cats. It is a sad story in many ways. Wain’s eccentricity eventually became overt mental […]

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Finch ★ ★ ★ ★

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Could a movie possibly go wrong with Tom Hanks, a teenagerly robot, a dog, and a post-apocalyptic plot? That would be difficult. Of course the plot, the situations, and the sentiment are predictable. But who cares if you’ve got Tom Hanks, a teenagerly robot, a dog, and a post-apocalyptic plot? This is a classic, family […]

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