Motley Kamuka

New York Post consistently irks me with their headlines. Great sports page. But their fight against progressives is designed to whip up their base. Rarely do I read the irking article.  For instance they caught deBlasio kissing a woman  (gasp!) and timed how long it went on. Kind of creepy. More than creepy, it's harassment. Get a life. Videos of Biden almost tripping, just a little slip. Yea, you're really the 4th estate with that one. When James Carville is quoted in the New York Post, you know he's said something stupid. Carville is essentially doing right wing talking points. I guess he's still married to that right wing hack. Maybe he said all that so he could take his shots at the Republican party. Was he just saying those things so he could say things to the right base? And then the Post carries it. I guess it's one way to get messages across. What is his message? I couldn't find one. I would argue pulling the party left is what the primaries is all abou...

I've confessed to watching Hee Haw, so I'm not sure why confessing that Madam Secretary is a very powerful show to me, is slightly embarrassing. I'm not sure why it's taken me 9 years to get to it, and I'm only onto season 3 today, but season two was a real serious season for me.  Catharsis isn't a word I throw around easily, but I can't tell you how many different kinds of tears I've shed watching this show. Tears of meaning, tears of sadness, tears of joy.  I know you're supposed to get value out of real relationships, and that fiction isn't really the central stream in your life. I know it's made up, I know it's pulling at my heartstrings, I know it cuts corners, and could even be manipulative at times. It does for me. It compares to West Wing . I'm not a big halls of power drama watcher, I'm not sure if there are other comparable shows after West Wing . Yes, Prime minister and House of Cards . I don't really know this ge...

Fernando Botero passed. His figures were larger, "outsized". "Botero depicted politicians, animals, saints and scenes from his childhood in an inflated and colorful form that was instantly recognizable." Links LA Times  "He was an artist largely spurned by the contemporary art world who nonetheless had a massive global visibility and commercial success." LA Times Obit : Botero died "...in Monaco of pneumonia complications." "Once he settled into that form of working he never wavered from it, sticking to it for the rest of his life. Artists who operate this way are looked down upon by the art world’s intelligentsia. The expectation is for artists to evolve, to take new formal or conceptual approaches as times change." Barrons : Christies is going to be selling his art later this month, that will include his paintings. YouTube : Ceremonial trip from plane to cemetery in Bogata, with talking head in Spanish.  My Modern Met Telegraph Far Ou...

I ran across this documentary about Hee Haw  (on YouTube). I watched that show with my grandma.  Hee Haw ran 1969 to 1992. I guess I watched it in the 70's. 

Lineup: Elijah Jamal Balbed(ts), Bruce Harris(tr), Mariel Bildstein(trb), Mark G. Meadows(p), Alexander Claffy(b), Aaron Seeber(d) I sometimes watched Smalls on Facebook, but I saw they have a YouTube channel now, and watched the above players. I don't like that they put a commercial in the middle of a trumpet solo of Bruce Harris. Mariel Bildstein on the trombone is interesting. Mark G. Meadows got his solo. I need to go to Smalls sometimes soon, that was good. I see a video from 8 years ago, so I guess I've been out of it, and I haven't been going to Facebook as much as I used to. At some point I started doing Reddit more, and Twitter for soccer. Their most watched video is John Chin . I've gotten into Mitski . She's a 32 year old Japanese American who lives in Nashville with 7 albums. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm  was a all female swing band from 1937-1948. I love swing music. When jazz was the popular music. Imagine when Rap music is considered clas...

Nicholas Kristof has an opinion piece called " The One Privilege Liberals Ignore " I find it utterly unpromising. He describes the problem, then says Bush tried to reward marriage and that failed. "Lifting earnings is where liberals have the solutions: strengthened labor unions, community college support, skills training initiatives such as high school career academies and groups that provide technical training like Per Scholas." Yup, that's the solution. But it doesn't include the judgement that conservative types want to launch and in the judgement, they want people to suffer. So he's described a problem, but he doesn't like the liberal solution, and he doesn't have one, and well, that's the liberals fault. Nice. I can't believe they published this in the New York Times, except they try to give fair voice to conservative voices.  For many years conservatives have felt appropriately cowed by their lack of real solutions. They don't ...

I feel that weird pull of obsession. I watched Asteroid City  Turns out Bill Murray got Covid and couldn't be in the film, so he added a scene where he's a character cut from the movie. ( New Yorker ) And then The Grand Budapest Hotel. I remember Fantastic Mr. Fox and more recently Isle of Dogs. I vaguely remember Rushmore, which came out in 1998. I haven't seen Bottle Rocket, his first movie, but I will soon. I haven't seen The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I am watching The French Dispatch right now. I feel as thought I'm a narrator in a Wes Anderson movie. I feel like I'm a character in a Wes Anderson movie. I shouldn't continue to watch his movies, I should let this wear off. Apparently I’m not unique . Now I'm watching  The Darjeeling Limited  (2007). Follow me on Letterboxd , to read more. I want to read the Books: Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter by Mark Browning (2011) Kunze, Peter C., ed. (2014). The films of Wes Anderson: Critical essay...

You can see the advancement in technology in the beauty of Star Wars, as it evolves. In episode 4 of Ashoka that came out yesterday, you see a map overlayed at an ancient site. It's stunningly beautiful, though the sword fighting kind of distracts you, and the drama distracts you.  There's an ex-Mandalorian, Jedi returner, with low midichlorians, struggles to find the force in Sabine Wren. The robots are evolving too, extra snark about Wren rejoining her training with Ashoka.  Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Andor, Obi Wan Kenobi and Ashoka are all well told Samurai westerns, fantasy, and science fiction.  I fear reading online I'll see people complain about it. Let it unfold and sit with it or don't watch it. Or shoot your knee jerk reactions into the infosphere, that's always an option.  And you can look no farther than The Guardian to find criticism and dislike. I get this sick feeling when I see Rosario Dawson, I remember when Kids came out and that movie made me feel ...

Spoilers in my review. The Second Murder by Denise Mina is pretty good. You can still make more reality of having gay people and competent women, social awareness. I find it richer to rewrite things with a modern sensibility. There’s still a feel of Marlowe.  Kittens only cabaret, men aren't invited. Putting Marlowe in the club and uncomfortable is genius. She makes a female PI, sort of like Enola Holmes. I really enjoyed Lidia Poet on Netflix. Putting people back into history that were present. The whole world is there, not just a slimmed down version. People are brave enough to proudly proclaim their twisted prejudices nowadays, but in the America I grew up in, they were slightly ashamed and hid their negative and narrow views. I really liked Shelly Parker-Chan's book She Who Became The Sun, writing transgender experience into ancient China historical novel. Good writers don't make it feel programmatic, pushed it, it feels balanced, and accurate. Makes me want to see the...

I try to focus on one book and push my way through it. I have side books when one book becomes tedious. I also read soccer and Buddhism and poetry, I guess I would call them category books for when I want soccer, Buddhism or poetry. Today I have a day off and I thought to read all the books I'm reading in my bedside pile, and write about them. The Great White Bard by Farah Karim-Cooper: Race and Shakespeare is a much needed topic. I wrote a review of the beginning of the book on my Shakespeare blog . I find the idea that racism doesn't exist quite offensive. I've learned about the slave trade by Englishmen who got knighthoods during Shakespeare's life. I found out that Kant cited Hume in favor of white supremacy. It's a personal book as well, and she discusses being a Pakistani heritage woman, grew up in America, went to college in England, and trying to get into English academic world was not easy. Kukai: Major Works  translated by Toshito S. Hakeda. This professo...

Melissa Etheridge got turned onto reading Slaughterhouse 5 like I did ( source ). She likes poetry too, "Pablo Neruda might be my favorite, the one who started me out. But also May Sarton, Adrienne Rich, Rilke, Rumi." Also Byron, Yeats, and Keats, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Carolyn Forché and Mary Oliver. I'm going through a Mary Oliver phase. Never read Carolyn Forché .  The Country Between Us is her top book on Goodreads.