What I Read
With my wife and I moving from a farmhouse on the edge of a haunted cherry orchard and the sky is endless to a more urban setting on the east coast encased in lights, I can’t stop thinking about the book, Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. The book is about the philosophy of the spaces we dwell in. He talks about the serenity of an old rustic farmhouse and the spaces piled up on top of each other in Paris, and the relationship between person and space becomes artificial. I think of space as an essential aspect of my quest to find home. If my wife and dog are there, it will be home.
What I Watched
Blood Simple (1984) by the Coen Brothers. After watching A Woman. A Gun, and A Noodle House (2009), I needed to see the original again. This is the Coen Brothers’ first entire feature film and the debut of Acadamy award-winning Frances McDormand. It doesn’t feel like the rest of the Coen movies a beautiful, dark, and slow Texan noir. They made Raising Arizona next, so this is much more serious, but it still has that detective story the brothers love so much.
What I Heard
Dust to Digital creates access hard to find music with making recordings. Every day they post on Instagram, showcasing overlooked music from all over the world. This is refreshing in homogenized internet culture to hear and access records from the marginalized and our past. They also are preserving recordings to make sure our educators and music-lovers alike will have access to them in the future.
What I Read
Libra by Don Delillo & American Tabloid by James Ellroy. Both books take a semi-fictional account of the possible conspiracy that killed President John F. Kennedy. The strange parallel is the political climate in the early 60s with the politicization of the John Birch Society, the KKK, and other anti-communists, plus the after-effects of the McCarthyism of the 50s. Instead of Facebook and Youtube videos, pamphlets and radio shows claimed the red Chinese were in Tiajuana about to invade and Cuba’s new leader, Fidel Castro. While they are both historical fiction, they both make a very poignant point. I also love an excellent JFK assassination conspiracy theory. The CIA, the FBI, the Mob, the Cubans, The Soviets, shadow governments, future Watergate plumbers, future president of the United States of America George H. W. Bush, and maybe even Woody Harrelson’s dad!