R.I.P. Un Otro de Mis Primos Mayores

I got news from my mother earlier this week that another one of my older cousins in Detroit passed away in April due to the Corona virus. It has been years since I've seen him face-to-face yet he and his siblings still had a profound effect on my life -- if for no other reason than the fact that he and his siblings were the closest things to older brothers that I ever had.

He will be missed.

It's That Day Again...

As shameful as it seems, I didn't stop to think about what happened on this day back in 2001 until just an hour ago.

Oddly enough, I had already written one check this morning and paid a visit to one of the local banks before I realized...it was that day.

One of those anniversaries good Americans like me aren't supposed to forget.

It's not that I don't recall what happened that morning seven years ago. I just don't think about it every moment of the day. And yes, if I had lost a loved one on that day, I wouldn't have the luxury of forgetting so easily.

And yet it is in the nature of Man that even the date of some of the biggest catastrophes end up forgotten. Not because we wish to forget them but because we can think of them only so long before sanity encourages us to move on to something else.

Anyway, I did finally remember without any reminder from the newspaper, the TV news, the radio or the Internet.

I hope that next year I can say the same thing.

(Repost)

Quote of the Week

Perhaps the biggest reason why intellectuals excoriated entertainment was that they understood all too well their own precariousness in a world dominated by it. For whatever the overt content of any particular work, entertainment as a whole promulgated an unmistakable theme, one that took dead aim at the intellectuals’ most cherished values. That theme was the triumph of the senses over the mind, of emotion over reason, of chaos over order, or the id over the superego, of Dionysian abandon of Apollonian harmony. Entertainment was Plato’s worst nightmare. It deposed the rational and enthroned the sensational and in so doing deposed the intellectual minority and enthroned the unrefined majority.
--Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Mi Hermana!

It is my late sister's birthday today. I hope she's enjoying herself, wherever she is.

End of an Era -- Or a New Beginning?

I have been debating whether or not to end this blog after the end of this month since I am not especially fond of the incoming system and I won't have any choice about using it after the first of September.

On one hand, I have a lot of fond memories of this site. On the other, it's hard for me to pretend that I have the same enthusiasm for blogging that I had back in 2005. While I've always wanted to be a writer, I seem to be more and more obsessed these days with writing my own stories as opposed to analyzing someone else's -- which means if this blog survives, I will probably concentrate more on short stories than on movie and TV reviews.

Still it was a nice time while it lasted and I feel silly trying to stay the same when it has become increasingly obvious that I am not the same person I was back in 2005. I thank all my readers for your loyalty and I'm sorry I have not been more prolific.

If I do decide to start posting elsewhere, I will undoubtedly post a link to my new location. Until then, I wish you all the best.

Movie Quote of the Week

You see, Porfirio, when a monarch misrules, he changes the people, but when a presidente misrules, the people change him.
--Paul Muni, Juarez (1939)

TV Quote of the Week

Unbelievable! "Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!" Americans!
--Anthony Stewart Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Dead Man’s Party”

Quote of the Week

Because if I am not what I’ve been told I am, then it means that you’re not what you thought you were either!
--James Baldwin, “The Negro Child – His Self-Image”, originally published in The Saturday Review, December 21, 1963

The New Movie Normal

Due to various health and economic issues, I had pretty much resigned myself to not seeing any movies in the conventional fashion weeks before the current Corona virus crisis. What happened since then has only confirmed the idea that I was right to do so.

In a way, it's a shame. After all, some of the best memories of my life involve movie theatres.

On the other hand, I really don't see anyone with as many breathing issues as I have being all that comfortable wearing a mask for two hours just to watch a movie that I could see far more safely at home. Add to that the fact that movie theatres seem to be charging me more and more while providing me with less and less and suddenly cable TV and DVDs don't seem like bad alternatives.

Besides, the only real change I see on the horizon is an end to library rentals. My local library is finally allowing patrons to check out and check in books but the check out process is by appointment only and while I don't mind going through all that to read a book, going through all that to rent a movie is another story.