Just watched Nancy Pelosi winning the speaker’s chair on CNN. So moving. Such a moment of hope. I keep writing in my Moleskine that maybe today is the tipping point. Hope against hope. And before she spoke, the minority leader Kevin McCarthy talked about representative democracy in a way I haven’t heard in the UK for years. Goodness knows what the new year is going to bring this country. It’s such a mess.
I was too tired last night to anything except fire up Amazon Prime, and saw the most awful film. It was called Black Mother, set in Jamaica, and had been compared in the NYT review with The Harder They Come (1972). But it was complete rubbish, absolute rubbish. I don’t think I have seen a worse film. And the guy who made it is described on LetterboxD as –
Khalik Allah is a self taught filmmaker and photographer. His profoundly personal work has been described as visceral, hauntingly beautiful, penetrative and honest.
Really? Serious doubts about the NYT reviewer’s judgement.
This holiday season has been manic, relatively speaking, given that I usually don’t do much. For some reason evenings have been eaten up and evenings are when I write. It’s almost as if the day has a trajectory which lands me late afternoon in a space which dictates the remains of the day. AI is still in the cardboard box. So is Spanish now. Resurrected is jazz piano, especially Swing rhythm and “comping”. And I continue to write stuff for this blog. There is just not enough time. In fact the piano could easily occupy my entire day, what’s left of it when I’m not dashing out on some other mission.
Anyway I’m off to Europe, hopefully not for the last time as a European. There’s nothing to pack since I’m only going to be in Amsterdam a few days. (EasyJet from Luton!). I’ve bought a Bluetooth super-thin keyboard that connects to my iPhone, so maybe I’ll be active on the ether whilst in AMS.