Roger Ebert writes about movies that hurt too much to watch. I can’t bring myself to re-watch either Brokeback Mountain or Schindler’s List. Brokeback breaks my heart or, rather, reminds me too much of my broken heart. And there’s the recent loss of Heath Ledger, too. My feelings about Schindler’s List are a little bit complicated. At the theater, I cried so much that I considered leaving; I felt like I was bothering everyone else. It wasn’t so much the inhumanity depicted in the film, though there was that, of course. I was crying in response to the good things that some characters did, at enormous risk to themselves. It’s a manipulative film, spectacularly so. (Link via PeaceBang)
Mamihlapinatapai: (Yaghan) a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start; eye-contact implying ‘after you…’; ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other (Link via Kottke)
In Japan, Buddhism is one the wane, according to this NYT story. I’ve always really appreciated the “easygoing, buffetlike approach to religion” taken by the Japanese. We Americans could learn something from that.
When I was a kid, way before it was cool, my dad was an organic gardener. We lived out in the sticks, and no one else got it. At all. Least of all me. So, anyway, this list in the NYT of the 11 best foods we aren’t eating has some, er, special resonance for me. Actually, though, I already like, and eat, several of these foods. But Swiss chard?! Please, God, please tell me I had enough of that stuff in my childhood to last a lifetime. Please.
And another NYT story that I can recommend this week—can you tell what I was reading this week?—details the recent collapse of catfish farming in Mississippi. Times are hard in the Delta. Eat more catfish, people! (Check out the cool slideshow accompanying the story, too.)