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Sunday Stealing: blueberry muffins

Bonnie, Neil, Diana, and Mac

Here’s another installment of Sunday Stealing, which is reason enough to have a picture of blueberry muffins. The first question is, What’s your guilty pleasure?

I’ll list foods I should not eat but crave for this exercise. These tend to involve pastry with fruit, such as banana bread, blueberry muffins, and apple pastry.

Which meal is your favorite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?

Dinner, because it tends to be the most varied. Breakfast is almost always oatmeal. Lunch is whatever leftovers might be kicking around. Dinner tends to be the most interesting.

What do you do when you want to chill out after a long day?

It tends to be watching television, specifically the Evening News, which we record and fast-forward through the commercials. So, I’ve managed to miss the bulk of the political ads running. Then, my wife and I play the New York Times Connections together.

How would you spend your ideal weekend?

On Saturday, we usually attend some event: a concert, play, musical, movie, or social gathering. Sunday involves going to church and then talking to my sisters on Zoom.

MUSIC, of course

Do you listen to podcasts, or mostly just music? What’s your favorite podcast?

I listen to a lot of music, usually seven CDs per day. Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Dr. John, and Neil Young are currently heavily in the rotation. But not many podcasts because I can’t multitask. I have to listen intently. It’s the same reason I can’t listen to audiobooks and do something else, as some people, notably my wife, can. I am utterly incapable. I have to concentrate on the item. So, besides Arthur’s occasional AmeriNZ item, the only podcast I listen to regularly is Coverville, which is mostly music.

Brian Ibbott usually picks covers of artists whose birthdays are divisible by five. So in November, he might select Chris Difford (Squeeze), 70, on the 4th; Bryan Adams, 65, on the 5th; Corey Glover (Living Colour), 60, on the 6th; Rickkie Lee Jones, 70, on the 7th; Bonnie Raitt, 75 on the 7th, etc.

Do you prefer to go to the movies or watch movies at home?

Cinema, always. I saw many movies at home during COVID-19, but it wasn’t the same. I remember going to the Spectrum Theatre when the vaccine was available, but social distancing and masks were the norm, and it was such a treat to see the films on the big screen.

TeeVee

What was your favorite TV show growing up?

The Dick Van Dyke Show. Mark Evanier has linked to his ten favorite episodes. (His #2 may be my #1)

What’s your favorite TV show now?

CBS Sunday Morning, a magazine on the air since 1979.

How would you spend your birthday if money was no object?

I’d rather throw a surprise party for Kelly with a few dozen of his closest friends and family in Washington, DC.

What’s your favorite season? What do you love most about it?

Spring. It could have snow or 86°F/30°C, but ultimately, it will have new life.

Do you prefer camping or going to the beach?

I don’t like either. If I had to choose, I’d say go to the beach, but I’d need a huge umbrella to protect me from the sun.

Which phone app do you think you use the most?

I probably use Noom because it can track all my food consumption. After that, I’ll probably use Venmo to send money to my daughter and the CDTA navigator so I can get around on the bus in Albany.

Steppin’ Out

Would you instead cook, order delivery, or go out to eat?

I would eat out almost every meal, every day. There’s something about other people preparing your food for you and then cleaning up afterward. It’d be different restaurants with a variety of levels of fanciness.

How do you drink your coffee?

I don’t drink coffee. I know it’s unAmerican.

If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose?

I don’t want another pet. We had two cats this year; one of them died. It’s much easier to go away when you don’t have a creature depending on you. I liked having them and love our remaining cat, but I reckon we won’t have another one.

Movie review: The Wild Robot

say important things

Based on good word-of-mouth, I attended a Tuesday afternoon matinee showing of the animated film The Wild Robot at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

I didn’t know it was based on a children’s book until I saw the movie. The story begins with robots that are shipwrecked on the shore. One robot is stymied by the fact that our heroine has no people to serve.

(Hmm. Can robots HAVE gender? This and many other questions are addressed in author Peter Brown’s reflections on the writing of this book.)

Initially, Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) confounds or terrifies the wildlife she sees. When she figures out the language of the woodland creatures, she, to her surprise, is not welcome. She inadvertently ends up parenting an orphaned baby goose, Brightbill (Kit Connor), assisted by a conflicted fox, Fink (Pedro Pascal).

I loved this movie. First, the DreamWorks film looks marvelous. But more importantly, it has a compelling storyline about making one’s way in a strange land. Some have compared it favorably with the movies E.T., the Iron Giant, and WALL-E, and I suppose there are hints of those.

“stunning visual feast but also a moving meditation”

However, I found it more reflective and deep about the complexities of life, yet it is still accessible to children. Several reviews (97% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) glommed onto the complexities of being a parent. Yet, at times, it was hysterically LOL funny.

Leonard Maltin wrote: “The Wild Robot is a genuinely beautiful movie, in every sense of that adjective. Its physical production is impressive, to say the least, but there are no weak links in its chain, from character design to its exquisitely rendered environment.” Other critics used terms such as “unexpected emotional rollercoaster, “and “a moving meditation on life, friendship, and survival in an unforgiving environment,”

Some reviewers were even more taken by it. Courtney Lanning of Arkansas Public Radio wrote: “Everyone who watches ‘The Wild Robot’ can come away connecting with something, whether it’s an urge to help others, even if they’ve hurt you in the past, or learning to say important things to loved ones because you never know when it’ll be too late.” Hmm. She’s not wrong.

Right before the film, I attended a book review of The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli, reviewed by Lex Bhagat, former Executive Director of FFAPL, and currently a business librarian at NY SBDC, where I used to work. Two days later, I saw an episode of Law & Order: The founder of an AI-infused dating app is murdered. These got me thinking again about the nature of technology and how “real” Roz was. No answers, just musings.

Top/Favorite MOVIES

not boring

Drew from California asked:

Have you made your Top/Favorite MOVIES (so far in your life) list? If so, I’d love to get some good recommendations, as I feel rather “movie-watching deficient” in my lifetime. I do like Rom-Coms and intelligent conversations. Good adventure and sometimes good suspense are also fun to watch.

I find this extraordinarily difficult. For instance, I really liked EEAAO (Everything Everywhere All at Once). But will it stand up to the test of time? I dunno. I remember liking ALTERED STATES (1980) and Z, but they have faded from memory.

Likewise, I was a fan of Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim) (1962), a French film I saw in Binghamton in the late 1960s in a museum theater. It was my favorite foreign film, but I saw a lot of movies, such as Wild Strawberries, that I do not remember well.

That said, I tend to remember and enjoy movies I see in the cinema more than the ones I’ve seen on TV. Seeing a movie again is almost always revelatory. For instance, seeing The Wizard of Oz in 2022 on the big screen was way better than watching it several times on TV.

I like from coms. Is Groundhog Day a rom-com? You could try Love Actually. I like lots of documentaries, but only one of them made this list.

Here’s a list; THE list may never exist.

Casablanca (1942) – saw outdoors at a screening in the late 1970s near Rochester, NY. A great film

Gaslight (1944), which I wrote about, and the word, here.

Rear Window (1954) – I saw it at the Spectrum Theatre in the 1980s. Most excellent and full of suspense.

12 Angry Men (1957) – I wrote about it here

Always on the list

West Side Story (1961) –Some of my favorite music is here. It’s not a great movie – it takes too long to get going, but it was the first grown-up movie I saw.

101 Dalmatians (1961). Possibly the first movie I ever saw in a theater. The lead male adult, Roger, gets to sing “Cruella DeVille.”

The Sound of Music (1965) —My mother had the soundtrack on LP, but I never saw it until the 21st century. It is far better than I expected.

Le Roi de cœur (King of Hearts – 1966) – it played approximately annually at a movie theater in New Paltz, where I went to college.

The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968)- there is a story here.

Cabaret (1972) – I saw it when it first came out, then a half-century later, both in theaters. It holds up.

Young Frankenstein (1974) – Possibly the funniest movie I ever saw. I had an aisle seat, and I laughed so hard at one point that I was literally rolling in the aisle.

Annie Hall (1977) – I haven’t seen it this century, but I wrote about it in 2007 here.

Being There (1979) – I spent a lot of time defending this film from people who thought it was “boring” and that “nothing happens.”

Airplane! (1980) – It has a character named Roger, played by Kareen Addul-Jabbar. Oh, and other stuff, including the script based on an existing dramatic film.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)? Well, of course. This was a remarkable technological feat and features a character named Roger.

Baseball

Field of Dreams (1989): I opted for this Kevin Costner baseball film rather than the fine Bull Durham (1988) because it’s sappier, and I totally buy into it.

Do the Right Thing (1989) – probably the first Spike Lee movie I saw.

Groundhog Day (1993) was one of the first items I owned on VHS. It features JEOPARDY! to see annually.

THE IRON GIANT (1999) – I LOVE THIS animated MOVIE

Being John Malkovich (1999) – surreal

Chicago (2002). An old-fashioned musical

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is one of the few movies I have seen at home on the list.

The Incredibles (2004): My favorite Pixar film, which I can tell, because it was later on NBC, with all those damn commercials, and I still enjoyed it.

INSIDE OUT (2015) – an emotionally honest film

13th (2016). Documentary about the 13TH Amendment

Hidden Figures (2016) – I wrote about it here

Black Panther (2018) – I wrote about it here

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) – I mention this here

I am frequently reminded of a line from the 1991 film Grand Canyon, in which the Steve Martin character says: “That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” I’m convinced there is some truth to that.

Movie review: Sing Sing

Unlocked

Since I saw the trailer months ago, I’ve been eager to see the movie Sing Sing. “Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men in this story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art.” My wife and I attended a Monday night showing at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

From RogerEbert.com: “Writer-director Greg Kwedar and his script partner Clint Bentley developed the project after buying the rights to the 2005 Esquire article ‘The Sing Sing Follies,’ by John H. Richardson. But they didn’t just shrink-wrap a true story in Hollywood cliches. They did what good journalists would do and re-reported the entire thing by interviewing people from the story as well as various participants in the Sing Sing correctional facility’s theater program.”

Acting!

One interview of the directors of Ghostlight [a movie I highly recommend] and Sing Sing on their cinematic explorations of empathy via theater notes: “{Sing Sing] revolves around an original production called Breaking the Mummy’s Code, most closely following founding member John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield (Domingo) as he prepares for an upcoming clemency hearing. Divine G soon finds himself challenged, then befriended by newbie Clarence ‘Divine Eye’ Maclin (as himself), a lone wolf selling drugs who can intimidate someone in the yard one minute, then casually quote King Lear the next.” Mummy’s Code, BTW, is a wildly fascinating production, evoking, among others, Robin Hood, Freddy Krueger, Hamlet, and a Roman citizen.

The movie had the opportunity to be a canned feel-good story, but it didn’t because of the persona of the Domingo character and verisimilitude of the theater director (Paul Raci from Sound Of Metal); Divine Eye (Maclin), a newbie would-be actor in the play; and the other actors.

RTA

Hmm. Maclin’s IMDb includes Unlocked: The Power of the Arts in Prison, which “captures the unsparingly honest stories of formerly incarcerated men and women who participated in RTA’s prison arts program. The film offers a different model for criminal justice, emphasizing life skills that lead to success after prison.”

What is RTA? Rehabilitation Through the Arts. “RTA helps people in prison develop critical life skills through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather than punishment.” Oh and here’s the Unlocked short film, which features Maclin and others I recognized from the movie Sing Sing!

“Founded at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1996, RTA has provided arts-based workshops to thousands of incarcerated men and women, transforming lives and breaking the cycle of incarceration with proven results: less than 3% of RTA members return to prison, compared to 60% nationally. To learn more about our work, ask questions, or provide support, please contact us.”

The fact that this is based on a true story – clips from the original Breaking the Mummy’s Code shows up in the end credits – makes this even more compelling.

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98% positive rating with critics, 93% with audiences. One of the three negative critics’ takes misses the point completely: “The story itself presents a flawed notion of ‘serving time’ and becoming ‘reformed’ as a result of incarceration without unpacking the institutional violence that lands Black men behind bars at a disproportionate rate.” It’s just not THAT movie. The one that it is suffices.

Sunday Stealing: plans for August

Sing Sing

Another Sunday Stealing quiz.

1. What are your plans for August?

My family is going on another trip. I’ll tell you about it after the fact. I will note that my wife and I returned yesterday from the Chautauqua Institution. We were away for a week during its 150th anniversary. I’ll write about it in dribs and drabs in the coming weeks. Also, some major housecleaning is required due to an unexpected development.

2. Your mid-year resolutions or goals

Do more genealogy. My sister Leslie was in our hometown of Binghamton, NY, for a reunion this month, and she got a lot of info from a third cousin (I think) on my mother’s side and my father’s first cousin. Oh, and I plan to do LESS of some other things.

3. Are you good at taking care of plants?

Absolutely not. I have no plants; I’ve never been good with them. My wife has a few, but we must keep them out of reach of our cat Stormy, who will otherwise chew on them and then throw up.

4. What makes you feel nourished?

Interesting question. It depends on what one means by “nourished.” It could be oatmeal or music.

5. Which animals do you see most in your area?

Cats. Lots of cats are in our backyard, so many that our neighbors mistakenly think they are ours.

6. Books on your summer reading list

When folks come to the Friends of the Albany Public Library and present an author talk, I usually buy one of their books. Currently, I have more than a dozen unread. I’ll pick one AFTER the projects are done, which is to say, probably in the autumn.

Hanging like the sword of Damocles

7. Projects you want to tackle this summer

I am editing someone’s book, which I MUST return to; I haven’t touched it all month. Getting our back porch replaced.

8. Do you have weddings, graduations, summer celebrations

We went to the Olin family reunion in July. It’s my MIL’s people.

9. Which summer snacks are you excited to enjoy again?

I can’t think of a thing I eat only in summer.

10. How much time do you like to take for vacations

A minimum of a week. Three-day jaunts can be okay, but it’s not vacating enough.

11. Where are your favorite picnic locations?

Random roadside stops. There’s a nice one on I-86 about a half hour west of Binghamton.

12. Something that would be out of character for you

Not singing.

13. Which summer movies are you excited to see?

I went to the Rolling Stone list of The 44 Most-Anticipated New Movies of Summer 2024. So far, I’ve seen Ghostlight, Inside Out 2, Janet Planet, Thelma, and Daddio, all of which I have reviewed in the links; I liked them all except Janet Planet. Sing Sing is the only movie on the list I know enough about that I would like to see.

14. Your favorite free/cost-effective ways to have fun

Lots of free concerts in Albany

15. Who do you trust most to house & pet sit?

My daughter’s friend Kay