“I have come to the sad conclusion that there never was an age that was wholly civilized—that there was always the barbarism & savagery that we know to-day, with a few beautiful spirits who lit up their age.”
—Janice Biala, quote from Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel
That quote is from “Ninth Street Women” by Mary Gabriel, a fascinating book about the women artists at the center of America’s Abstract Expressionist movement. I was anxious to read more last night but we opted to watch the third to the last episode of the original Hawaii Five 0 series and I feel asleep. We have worked our way through all thirteen seasons. Danno bailed last season and the show seems lost, just as we will be when the series ends.
Today is the last day that “Lost In Translation” will be available on Netflix. It was so good. Roger Ebert, while still alive, (his site lives on) wrote “Bill Murray’s acting in Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” is surely one of the most exquisitely controlled performances in recent movies. Without it, the film could be unwatchable. With it, I can’t take my eyes away. Not for a second, not for a frame, does his focus relax, and yet it seems effortless. It’s sometimes said of an actor that we can’t see him acting. I can’t even see him not acting. He seems to be existing, merely existing, in the situation created for him by Sofia Coppola.”
A neighbor of ours dropped dead at sixty. We saw his obit on Christmas Eve and stopped over to visit his longtime partner. It’s pretty clear time is running out. We heard the Stooges,”1970,” in our car on the way home from Jeff and Mary Kaye’s. “1969, baby,” “Ninteen-seventy rollin’ in sight” and now – I don’t want think about it.
The witch hazel, the ultra fragrant, butterscotch strain in the park that usually blooms in February is out now.
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