Operation Fortune (2023)

I could begin and end this review by say this is a Jason Statham movie, start to finish. Nothing different and nothing disappointing (although review might have you believe otherwise, fans will get exactly what they came for in this movie). We were a little road weary, and our friends even more so--we had after all flown halfway across the country (albeit with an unnecessarily long layover) and they had driven it. So this was the perfect foil, complete with popcorn and red licorice! Jason Statham plays Orson Fortune, an in-demand operative called in by the British government on occasion to execute difficult tasks of national importance. The British government here is represented by Nathan (Cary Elwes), whose job is keeping the unreliable Orson on track. Orson, we are told before we meet him, has a host of phobias, making him a risky hire. But then Orson appears, and he seems like an average laconic-speaking action hero. He boards multiple planes throughout, enduring long international flights with no sign of phobia. That was the most disappointing thing, because Statham does physical comedy, and so much could have been made of the bad ass hero with some quirky phobias thrown in, but no, nothing comes of this subplot. In any case, it is the usual comic spy movie with a crowd pleasing ending, and no harm and no fouls. Recommended for ultra light viewing when you are taking a break from the exhausting Marvel Universe.

When McKinsey Comes To Town by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe

Much like when I read Empire of Pain, I did not realize just how far people will go to make money without regard for others, and that cultivating a sterling reputation means that you pay the right people enough money to keep quiet but not that you are actually squeaky clean. McKinsey claims to serve 90 of the world’s 100 largest companies in addition to a host of prominent governments and institutions. McKinsey’s avowed mission stretches far beyond its $10 billion in annual revenue. Portraying itself as a “values-driven organization” dedicated to creating “positive, enduring change in the world,” the firm extols its environmental and social initiatives. This couldn't be further from the truth. The authors, two investigative reporters with the New York Times, expose the firm’s unsavory work with fossil fuel companies, cigarette-makers, opioid distributors, regulatory agencies and autocratic regimes. This is bad, but not the worst claim made against them. McKinsey was rife with conflicts of interest in which it advised multiple companies within a sector (did they share or use confidential information to make themselves and their clients money? Seems entirely possible, though apparently they deny it) and, more disconcertingly, regulators alongside the companies they oversaw. Over the years, its cost-cutting recommendations downplayed safety concerns at U.S. Steel, Disneyland and American immigration centers, and shorted insurance policy holders of billions of dollars in claims. The list goes on, and it is exactly as awful as your worst imaginings.

Women Talking (2022)

This is a hard movie to watch, and while it is set in a modern time, there are a lot of principles that echo A Handmaid's Tal--men control everything. They have control over every aspect of women's lives and that is the point, the power and control is everything, obedience is paramount. This is based on a true story. Between 2005 and 2009, 150 women and young girls were drugged and raped by men in their secluded Mennonite community in Bolivia. The women would wake up having no idea what happened, but seeing blood, bruising on their legs, noticing their underwear was missing, and becoming pregnant. The age range of the victims spanned from 5 to 65. Mennonite communities normally handle such things in-house. But this time, the elders of the community (all men)—who got suspicious and decided to follow one of the men at night, thereby catching him in the act—reported the crime to the Bolivian authorities. The eventual trial, where the victims showed up to testify, was a sensation. Eight men were sentenced to 25 years in prison. Here the movie revolves around the woemn deciding what to do once they know that the men are coming back to the community. Do they do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. These scenes are interspersed with scenes of what happened. In one a young girl miscarries and is covered in her blood--she wonders if her brother was the father, or was it someone else who raped her. The experience of watching this is akin to hearing men talking about what should happen to women, such as in the denial of the right to make a decision about what should happen to your body, that is right here and now in the United States. It is cloaked in other rhetoric, but the bottom line is that it is men exerting power and control over women. Quite sickening and something to fight with all your might.

Super-Infinite: The Tranformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

This falls under the category of "Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover"--it is so uninspiring to look at, and may put a prospective reader off right away. I picked up the book because it was one of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2022, and I was giving that list a whirl. It is also one of the New York Times Notable Books, so I knew it would be at least good. Donne is a complex man who much has been written about. His holy trinity were sex, death, and God, and he portrayed body and soul as radically, delightfully commingled. He was born in 1572, into a Catholic family at a time of persecution (Elizabeth was queen and it was early enough in the time of the Anglican church that Rome still harbored hopes of recapturing England, religiously, at least); family members were imprisoned and tortured. Donne moved between success and penury, with a stint in law, an unsuccessful foray as an adventurer in Spain, and a period at court that ended when he secretly married Anne More and was thrown in prison by her father. Then there were years as the impoverished, frustrated father of 12 children (six died), a period of grief after his wife’s early death and his final efflorescence, at once unexpected and inevitable, as a clergyman who was swiftly promoted to dean of St Paul’s. This is a love story, yet few of Donne’s love poems were written for his wife. The author characterizes Donne as the swaggering womanizer who in reality had very little sex. She is convincing in her suggestion that Donne wrote his most satisfying erotic poems not for his lovers but for an audience of male friends. He was a complex and brilliant man, and this is not so much a biography but rather an exploration of how all his talents came to coalesce. Short and sweet.

Babylon (2022)

Running at close to three hours, and feeling every minute that long, this is all about the oppulence of movies themselves, and more importantly, the making of them. This is a lavish 1920s-period piece about how often the silver screen images that feel like magic are really the product of incredibly hard work, broken dreams, and a lot of luck. Multiple sequences throughout the movie detail how much work goes into two seconds of film, whether it's a field of dozens of extras sitting around while a camera is obtained or the difficult perfection needed when recording sound. And there is a lot of focus on the people who make it happen at the cellular level, who are not the people who get all the glory. This is a film of stunning parts—both individual scenes, performances, and tech elements—but it feels like the magic touch needed to pull them together in an honest way is out of reach. There's something to be said about a film being so robustly unapologetic in it's storytelling, but I could have done with a tighter plot and an hour less time invested.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

This is a near future dystopian novel that rings very close to true, in that while we are not quite there yet, this doesn't sound impossible any more. The hero of this novel is Noah Gardner, whose mother called him Bird--he leaves home in search of his missing mother, and he endures trials and perform feats, just like any classical hero but he is set apart from the usual hero because his journey is rooted in books and libraries. Bird’s mother, Margaret Miu, a daughter of Chinese immigrants, is a poet of some stature whose career ended when the United States took a turn into hard xenophobia and passed PACT. The Preserving of American Cultures and Traditions Act encourages bigotry against many groups, particularly Asian Americans, partly in response to China’s increasingly powerful role in the global economy. After Margaret’s disappearance, Bird’s father loses his prestigious position as a linguistics professor. Given a low-level archives job, he must move with his son to a tiny apartment where they face each day with grim resignation. Bird finds clues that he attaches to his mother that begin to constitute a treasure map, leading him on a journey. It is a cautionary tale, and well written at that.

To Leslie (2022)

Wow, this was very painful to watch, but it is a very good portrayal of an addict. We first meet the title character, Leslie, in an opening credits montage of photos showing what life was like before. Leslie got married, had a son, won $190,000 in a lottery and then burned through all the money, as well as burning all her bridges and any good will she had before she became a compulsive addict. Her drug of choice seems to be alcohol, but her behavior is more reminiscent of amphetamine and opiate addicts. The story picks up seven years after the lottery win. Leslie's life is dire. She's an alcoholic loner skating on the edge. When she gets evicted from the seedy motel she's been living in, she stuffs her few belongings in a pink suitcase and drops in on her now-19-year-old son James at his apartment in the city. He is the adult in the relationship--he sets rules, she breaks them, he kicks her out. Leslie eventually finds her way back to her rural hometown, the place where she won the lottery, and where she has quite a few ghosts. She gets quite a few breaks, but she is unable to operationalize them. Still, this is an impressive character portrait. Leslie often acts as if any hand extended to her is an opening to get more. And she has trouble delivering on promises she makes and duties she accepts. Sooner or later, she brings chaos and sourness to every interaction. If you have an addict taking advantage of youin your life, this should be adequate motivation to get involved with Alanon

The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Amad

This was on the Wall Street Journal's list of 10 Best Books in 2022 and it is an interesting read. Faraz was born and raised in Lahore’s old city to a courtesan. He is forced to leave behind his mother and his sister Rozina when his father takes him away to ensure he has better life, although not a legitimate one. It isn’t until Faraz is an adult in 1968 working as a policeman, that he goes back to the old city to investigate the murder of a young girl who worked as a mujra, a courtesan, last seen with one of Lahore’s most powerful politicians. But Faraz is a stranger to his childhood home: estranged from his father Wajid, a Lahori bureaucrat who refuses to acknowledge his illegitimate son, his mother, a courtesan herself, and his sister Rozina, a Lollywood star whose career has seen better days. The author uses the noir genre to explore the scope of Pakistani history from World War II to the 1970s. Faraz’s investigation takes him from Lahori protests against Ayub Khan in 1968, to Dhaka in 1971 at the beginning of Bangladesh’s Revolutionary War. Rozina grapples with her relationship with her daughter and the lies she had to live for her career as an actress. And as a soldier in the Indian Army, Wajid spends his days as a prisoner of war, fighting for freedom as a colonial subject. It’s through the disparate members of this one family, and Faraz’s fraught search for justice and for home that the troubled nature of Pakistan is depicted.

Blonde (2022)

I agree with a review that I read of this movie that asserts that the film abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again, this time in gritty details. She is almost drowned by her mother, raped on the casting couch, a third wheel in a gay relationship, a physically assaulted wife, and the list goes on and on. It is overly long and overly detailed, especially in the sexual exploitation aspects. Sooner or later you will have to turn your eyes away as this lurid display becomes just too much. The shot from inside Marilyn’s vagina as she was having a forced abortion performed on her is one such scene. Enough already. But no, it just keeps coming and there is a lengthy, extreme close-up of a drugged-up Monroe fellating President Kennedy while he’s on the phone in a hotel room that feels gratuitous and over played. That said, Ana da Armas is up to the task. Whether she is crying or naked, both of which she is asked to do a lot, she is pitch perfect. She gives it her all in every moment; she’s so captivating, so startling, that you long for the part to provide her the opportunity to show more of Marilyn’s depth, to dig deeper than the familiar cliches, but alas, that does not happen.

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

This is the second book that grapples with the mystery of what Agatha Christie did for the eleven days that she disappeared in 1926, shortly after her husband revealed his extra-marital affair, and before the public was aware of the impending divorce. On the winter evening of Dec. 3, 1926, Christie got into her car — a little green Morris Cowley that she’d bought with earnings from her early novels — and drove off from her house in the suburbs near London. She left behind her sleeping 7-year-old daughter, Rosalind, in the care of the maid. She also left her beloved little terrier, Peter, who habitually lay down beside her as she wrote. Christie was wearing a fur coat and hat and carried only an attaché case. For more than a week until she was discovered, ensconced in the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, on Dec. 13, Agatha Christie was the object of one of the biggest missing-person searches in British history: police, bloodhounds, an army of volunteer searchers, fellow mystery novelists Dorothy L. Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle, and even Archie Christie and the intrepid little Peter all joined in the search. Here is a somewhat far fetched hypothesis of what happened in between.

Aftersun (2022)

This is really something as movies go. The whole movie is about a trip that 11 year old Sophie took with her father Calum to an all inclusive resort in Turkey. There's an uneasiness about this movie, but the source of it is hard to place, or even name, particularly since Calum and Sophie are enjoying their vacation, overall. The occasional friction is of the normal parent-child variety, nothing too toxic, nothing too traumatic. There is something lurking just below the surface though, and it is rare to see this captured in a film. Sophie is perceptive, and senses things, even if she can't put it into words. She perceives more than her father thinks she does. She perceive Calum’s existential anxiety and still is able to have a great time making a new friend at the arcade. The multi-level awareness is not in the dialogue, but it's there in the film's gentle rhythms. It is movie where you feel like you are in it, ease dropping on these two and their relationship.

Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra

This book opens in the 1990s, when Gonzalo and Carla are high-school students in love. Inevitably, they break up; surprisingly, they get back together about a decade later. Gonzalo is an aspiring poet, though he is passive, pessimistic, and dismissive of his own ambitions. He sees Chile the way he sees himself—unserious and stuck in adolescence. For him, the United States represents adulthood. Chile’s contemporary poets are the one thing he sees as laudable about the country, and uses them to explore what it means to be Chilean. Of course, it is hardly surprising that a book in which a loose crowd of poets represents a paradigm for a national future doesn’t present a settled projection of what that might look like. Chile may have a tradition of poet-diplomats, but poetry is a vehicle for dreams and projections into the past and even the future, but not public policy.

All Quiet On The Western Front (2022)

The book upon which this movie is basedupon came out in 1929 as a scathing indictment on WWI and Germany's role in it--so much senseless loss of life and destruction. A million men wounded or killed in the Battle of the Somme alone, and from start to finish, until the Armistice, the battle lines moved only a few miles back and forth. The author was vilified for it, and was exiled from Germany. The story remains the same, ever faithful to the original, in its gruesome, stripped down depiction of the battles, the generals, and the war itself. Paul Bäumer is an 18 year old student who, three years into the war, enlists in the Imperial German Army to fight for the fatherland. He is soon sent to the Western Front, a place where millions of soldiers have already gone to their deaths, and he survives--he changes, he becomes all sorts of things, but heroic isn't one of them. The very best part of this movie for me is the score, which is brilliant and horrific. I heard the composer in an interview talking about the signature sound of the score, the one that signals that even worse things are about to happen--and it turns out they are made my his great-grandmother's harmonium, an instrument that dates back to the war, and he uses it to indelibly imprint upon the audience that sound to be associated with dread. Well done and hard to watch, especially as Russians impose these same horrors on Ukraine right now in modern times.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DICamillo

I came upon this book in an unusual manner--I was reading a collection of essays by Ann Patchett, in one of which she describes her discovery of the children's author Kate DiCamillo, who is someone that is well known to me but who I had never read one of her books before. Patchett started here and went on to read all of them, and so that is where I thought I too would start. It is a tale of the private lives of children's playthings (of which Toy Story is the gold standard when it comes to movie versions). Edward Tulane is a vain, self-absorbed three-foot-tall china rabbit from France who appears to have all he could want: fabulous clothes, a tiny gold pocket watch and a little girl, Abilene, who loves him. Then it all vanishes. When the family goes off on an ocean voyage, he ends up in the water. Unfortunately, Edward is a passive character, so he can neither walk nor talk. But he does think and observe and wonder. His subsequent journey through life encompasses several metamorphoses as a wide variety of owners adopt him and is the quiet kind of adventure that is quite enjoyable to read.

Argentina, 1985 (2022)

There have been several movies over the years about Argentina's Dirty War, with thousands of people kidnapped, tortured, and killed without a trial, a crime, or any record of what happened to them--The Offical Story, The Disappeared, Imagining Argentina to name a few. This is about the reckoning that followed. Julio Strassera is the Argentinian chief prosecutor in charge of the junta trial in 1985--there was no only-following-orders argument: they were ones giving the orders. The event was easily as important as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission 11 years later, although the emphasis was much more toughly on the “truth” part. Nine top military brass were put in the dock for human rights abuses, and this film shows their haughty refusal to recognise the authority of a civilian court and theri efforts to intimidate and threaten those who were witnesses as well as the prosecutors and their families. Leopoldo Galtieri, who had been in charge of the shameful and catastrophic invasion of the Falklands just four years before was in the mix. His presence is not especially remarked upon, but Mitre lets the unspoken anger hover in the air: Argentina’s army was tough enough to torture women and children, but not tough enough to capture las islas Malvinas. The ending is known, but the depiction of how it unfolded it so well done, and a fitting end to this horrible chapter in Argentina's past.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

This is a modern day Dickens, the title echoing the surprisingly optimistic Dickens classic, David Copperfield. Dickens set his classic on his home turf, and so does Kingsolver--this is set in Appalachia. Our hero (or antihero) is Damon Fields, known as Demon and nicknamed Copperhead for his red hair, is born to a drug-using teenage single mother in a trailer in Lee County, Virginia. Even in this deprived neighborhood they stand out by being almost destitute. Since his mother is in and out of rehab, Demon is partly raised by the sprawling, warm-hearted Peggot clan. It’s all there in Dickens: the weak, infantile mother, ripe for abuse; the dead father and the disciplinarian boyfriend turned merciless stepfather; the bad odds against which no child stands a chance – and also the outsiders, some loving and others less so, who offer only a limited form of help. If you’re familiar with David Copperfield, then the arc of Demon Copperhead will hold few surprises, but the retelling is so well done, I was propelled through it to the end. The idealism and concern with social justice that are characteristic of Kingsolver’s worldview find their natural counterpart in Dickens’s impassioned social criticism, and I highly recommend both the classic and the modern updated version.

All That Breathes (2022)

There is the text of this movie, and then there is the subtext. The movie opens with a scene in a New Dehli garbage heap that is crawling with rats. Many other wildlife species also feature – but in particular the black kite, the bird that dots the Delhi skies and stalks its landfill sites – but this isn’t a nature documentary. Instead, the subject is brothers Nadeem and Saud, who, through dedicating their lives to the care and healing of these majestic raptors who are often injured, and who have developed an understanding of the city ecosystem that cannot be put into words. It has to be seen. The slow moving camera shots capture so much that is beautiful, unexpected and profound, in and around the brothers’ makeshift, basement bird sanctuary, that it seems some of it must have been set up or scripted.The movie is never cutesy or sentimental. The daily tasks involved in kite conservation prompt Nadeem and Saud to musings on the human condition that follow the animist example set by their late mother. It is from her outlook on the interconnectedness of all living things that the film takes its title: “One shouldn’t differentiate between all that breathes.” Which brings us to the subtext, which is the caste system in India, and the true outsiders, the Muslims. There is a backdrop of extreme secatrian violence that occurs in Nadeem and Saud's neighborhood during the filming of this where the neighborhood is burned and dozens are injured or killed. It is quite a contrast, these healers of birds who are hunted because of their religion.

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

At the end of this novel, which swings from impoverished hovels to palatial estates, I felt like no one could be trusted and the pursuit of money and power, regardless of who you literally kill along the way, is the rule. This is the story of Ajay, and his rags to hired gun story working for the most powerful family in India. Nothing about Ajay’s past suggests he would end up working for one of India’s most feared families. As a poor 8-year-old boy in eastern Uttar Pradesh, he was destined to a miserable life of subsistence farming — or worse. To settle a debt after his father is beaten to death, Ajay’s mother sells the boy off. But somehow Ajay cheats death, eventually catching the eye of a spoiled young man named Sunny Wadia. So begins an extraordinary journey and a deeply unnerving relationship. Ajay discovers that he loves to serve, to please, a desire that Kapoor captures in sentences that spring with frantic enthusiasm. Ajay latches on to young Sunny with the desperation of a groupie and the discipline of an acolyte. As Sunny’s armed bodyguard, he’s trained to kill every threat. He is a pawn in this sprawling saga about how vast power corrupts.

RRR (2022)

This is an Oscar contender only in the category of Best Original Song, perhaps in part because this was not India's choice for the International Film category. It has it all in terms of what you would expect from an Indian movie--swashbuckling heroes, excellent dancing to go with the great score, and in this one, it is all draped over a true story that is told in the Telugu language. “RRR” is short for “Rise Roar Revolt” and is an anti-colonial fable and buddy drama about the imaginary combo of two real-life freedom fighters, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan). They aspire to one nation united, and without the British (who do not come off well here). Both Bheem and Raju are extraordinary men because they are, at heart, aspirational expressions of the people’s will. Their lives, their loved ones, and their relationships are all of secondary importance to the goal of creating a united Inida. This is set in Dehli in 1920, but India still struggles with this today--it is no longer colonists but rather religion and ethnicity at the heart of discord and violence.

The Furrows by Namwali Sewell

This is a much lauded book, both one of the New York Times Best Fiction novels as well as landing on two lists that I read top to bottom. It is about what happens when a sibling is lost forever and how that feels for those that remain. This is a lived story for me, having a brother who died when I was ten and then growing up in a house where that was never really grappled with. So I get it. Here is how it all begins. When Cassandra Williams is twelve and her little brother Wayne they spend a lot of time alone. This was permitted. One day, when they're alone together, there's an accident in the ocean and Wayne is lost forever. Though his body is never recovered, their mother can't stop searching. Missing but presumed dead--the uncertainty of it is what they cling to, and it impairs their ability to move forward. As Cassandra grows older, she retells her story, and she sees her brother everywhere: in cafes, airplane aisles, subway cars. But it can't be, of course. Or can it? And then one day, there's another accident, and she meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who's also searching for someone, as well as his own place in the world. His name is Wayne.

Empire of Light (2022)

This is the year for directors to look back on the things that influenced them in thier youth, it seems, and this is Sam Mendes's contribution to that genre. The story is set in the fall and winter of 1980-81 in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, around a palatial two-screen Art Deco theater that shows films that were new back then, and when films were actually on film that played on reels. They were also movies that fed the imagination of young Mendes, who based parts of the script on his youth. The homage to what was then is on display. There's a projectionist who demonstrates how a projector works and talks about the persistence of vision and how light can shut out darkness. Various characters keep urging the heroine, the lonely, workaholic duty manager Hilary Small (Olivia Colman), to go sit in an auditorium once in a while, and let cinema transport her away from her miseries--which doesn't actually work it turns out. The plot follows a then taboo affair between Hilary, who is sexually harassed at work and alone at home and the new hire Stephen, who is black and harassed. The plot doesn't quite hold together, but close enough, and the cinematography is brilliant, enough so that I was transported by the beauty of it.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

I read this book solely based on the hoopla around it, that it was one of the five best non-fiction books of 2022 according to the New York Times. I did not know what the memoir was about, and if you want the same experience, to be surprised, then stop reading now. When a meandering story about a first generation immigrant whose parents are toying with the idea of going back to Taiwan veers suddenly into senseless violence I was taken by surprise. The murder of a college friend lies at the heart of this story. The friend, Ken, was shot dead at 20 years old in Vallejo, Calif., early one Sunday morning in July 1998, after a party in Berkeley. In the lead up to this tragic event we get to know Ken and see why he was so important to the author on many levels. The murder itself was an inept robbery that devolved into violence, and Ken’s assailants were quickly apprehended and jailed. The book describes both the buildup and the aftermath with devastating emotional precision, questioning the possibility of meaning in tragedy and the value of the stories we tell while attempting to find it. It is a thoughtful, affecting book--I was thinking not at the tippy top of the 2022 heap, but it has left me thinking about it, so maybe I am wrong about that.

Tar (2022)

This is an intense movie about an intense person, who is also very likely neurodivergent. Lydia Tár (played with fierce and seamless commitment by Cate Blanchett) is one of the wonders of the classical realm. She is a virtuoso pianist, an earnest ethnomusicologist, and a purposeful popularizer—she is apparently a member of the Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony (EGOT) club, which isn’t a common achievement for a classical person. And as a protean conductor about to conclude recording a cycle of Mahler symphonies, Lydia needs to get away from noise to do the work to which she almost stridently commits herself. She is noise sensitive and has trouble being around people and other living things. The movie is set up in the opening scenes. A nervous Lydia walks out onto the stage of a concert hall to rapturous tribute. She’s not there to perform, but to be interviewed, as a feature of one of those culture festivals major metropolitan centers hold every so often. Her interviewer is New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik, who plays himself, is a self-satisfied know-it-all who lays it all out for the rest of us. The sum total of what we learn here sets Lydia’s cultural status in a kind of stone, so the viewer looks forward to a film that will show how it all comes together. And how it all falls apart. Blanchett is so convincing in the role that you forget it is acting.

The Bomber Mafia by Malcom Gladwell

This is much like Gladwell's other books, which are well told stories that have an element of journalistic investigation, but are not scientific treatises or history textbooks, in this case. I really enjoyed this, which is designed as an audiobook with original interviews and broadcasts included, but it is not for a WWII history buff I would imagine. It is short, maybe not 100% accurate, and skips over parts that are important but not part of the story he wants to tell. He tries to explain how the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) came to conduct firebombing raids over Japan in spring 1945. These raids, which preceded the atomic bombs, resulted in significantly more damage to the Japanese homeland but are often overshadowed by the atomic bombs. The central topic of Gladwell’s thesis is the firebombing effort and the relief of Gen. Haywood Hansell as commander of the XXI Bomber Command with his replacement, airpower icon Gen. Curtis E. LeMay. He begins with addressing how the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) at Maxwell Field, Alabama, developed the idea of precision daylight bombing. This untested doctrine became a mantra for true believers in airpower, especially when combined with the emerging technology of the time. As aircraft performance increased in speed, range, and payload, framers of the precision bombing doctrine became increasingly convinced their ideas held great promise. The author also includes a lengthy discussion of how the irascible Carl Norden developed his famous bomb sight that, when merged with aircraft performance, seemingly enabled marksmanship-like precision for the USAAF. Convinced that this marriage of technology and airpower would be decisive in an upcoming war, ACTS acolytes looked to validate their ideas with almost religious zeal. He veers off a bit far on the parallels between religion and belief in other things for my taste, but he does ably demonstrate the dangers of not having an open mind. The book veers off course several times, but it is what Gladwell does best, which is following his interests and taking us along with him.

Chili Garlic Shrimp Noodles

The original recipe calls for udon noodles but I used lo mein noodles and it was very popular. I also stir fried some broccoli and onions to boost the vegetable count, and it was quite good. I would suggest a little more heat too, if you are so inclined. 500 grams udon noodle 1/2 lb. Shrimp 3 tbsp green onion finely chopped 1 tbsp vegetable oil or any neutral tasting oil 1 tsp garlic minced Sauce : 2 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp gochugaru or 2 tsp for spicy (or sub with red chili pepper flakes) 1 tsp white granulated sugar ½ tsp chicken bouillon powder (aka chicken stock powder) ½ tsp Chinese black vinegar 2 tsp dark soy sauce 2 tsp regular soy sauce not light or dark! Optional: ½ tsp sesame seeds optional garnish Chicory logo INSTRUCTIONS Soak your frozen udon noodles in hot boiling water JUST until loosened, about 30 seconds. Strain immediately and set aside. In a pan set over medium heat, add vegetable oil. Once oil is hot, fry shrimp until pink, curled and cooked through. Remove shrimp from pan. Repeat if you are adding vegetables of any sort. Lower to low-medium heat. In the same pan, add garlic and green onions. Then quickly add in all Sauce ingredients premixed together: sesame oil, gochugaru, sugar, chicken bouillon powder, black vinegar, regular soy sauce and dark soy sauce. Add in the noodles, and once they are warmed and coated with sauce, mix back in shrimp, and vegetables if using. Remove off heat. Serve with sesame seeds and more green onions (both optional). Enjoy!

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

And now for something different, at least from this author. It is like Moo, which followed A Thousand Acres. This is an entertaining, light murder mystery set in Monterey, California, in 1851 during the Gold Rush. Eliza turned to sex work after her husband died in a bar brawl. She finds it preferable to the miserable marriage her Covenanter parents pushed her into to nip her budding romance with an Irish Catholic laborer back home in Kalamazoo. Why a man over a decade her senior who brutalized her physically, emotionally, and sexually, was preferred over an age congruent man she liked is beyond me, but you could see getting paid for sex might be preferable than being essentially raped every day, but you can easily figure out why she had no interest in going back. When several women in their dangerous line of work disappear and neither the sheriff nor the local vigilantes seem to care, Eliza and her cross-dressing friend decide to investigate themselves. It is a dangerous business, but they are matter-of-fact as they go about uncovering a killer.

The Flying Sailor (2022)

This movie is based on a real event. On the morning of December 6th, 1917, the steamship Mont-Blanc, inbound from the Atlantic with war material for France, entered the Halifax Harbour Narrows. The Norwegian ship Imo left Bedford Basin, outbound for New York to load supplies for occupied Belgium. In homes, schools, and factories lining the shores, people started a new day in a busy wartime port. When Imo crossed The Narrows into the harbor in Halifax and struck Mont-Blanc’s bow, Mont-Blanc’s main cargo of bulk high explosives met the barrels of petrochemical on deck, it triggered the blast and the ship was transformed into a three-kiloton bomb in a busy modern port. 1700 were killed and 9,000 were wounded in the blast. commands the right balance of poignancy and levity. It’s undeniably funny--the unsuspecting sailor has his clothes blasted off, and his naked form is catapulted into the air, where he somersaults over the town that he was strolling down the streets of seconds before. The short animation employs a wealth of techniques (3D, 2D, live action, and photographs), along with a bold mix of comedy, suspense, philosophy and playful abstraction, and is an exhilarating meditation on a few seconds of a life, and a celebration of the wonder and fragility of being.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

This is a detailed look at the last ocean crossing of the Lusitania, jockeying between the perspective of the ship's captain, the U-boat commander that ultimately sunk the ship, and then the perspective of the US government and the president, Woodrow Wilson. This author is a master storyteller, who after having amassed the history, weaves it all together into a tale that is both easy to follow and to understand the significance. Here is the gist of it. On 7 May 1915 the Cunard liner Lusitania, the fastest ship of its day, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German submarine 12 miles off the coast of southern Ireland, not far from Cobh. It sank in 18 minutes: 1,198 passengers and crew, including three German stowaways and 123 Americans, perished. Only six of 22 lifeboats were launched. Many passengers drowned because they donned their life-jackets incorrectly and could not keep their heads bobbing above water. There were 764 survivors. This unprecedented attack on civilians caused a storm of indignation, particularly in the US, which expected its citizens to be immune from international violence. Putin is by no means the first and he won't be the last leader to target civilians in the name of advancing a war cause. The Germans targeted any ocean going vessel, and in this case, that practice was one of the dominoes that fell and led to America's reluctant involvement in WWI.

Ice Merchants (2022)

This animated short film by João Gonzalez, which won a prize at last year’s Cannes Critics’ Week and is short-listed for an Oscar, opens with the stark image of a child playing on a swing outside a house affixed to a sheer rock face. A chasm yawns beneath the child’s feet. Clearly, the kid has nerves of steel (it makes me dizzy just to watch it, much less be there), and so does his Father, who doesn't intervene in thisveritginous play. Every day, father and son harvest ice from their mountain perch and then parachute off their deck to deliver it to the valley dwellers far below. Then, coins in hand, they return to their altitudinous home by means of an ingenious contraption. The value of hard work or the senselessness of it all? It is hard to tease apart. In any case, the absurdity of repetitive labor, as well as the comfort of such work, is not the central theme. The filmmaker describes this as a family drama about loss and family connection. Someone is missing from the ice merchants’ home in the cold mountain air. The absence is symbolized by a yellow mug, one that is never used but often contemplated. Toward the end of the story, as the film dives into the magical and the sublime, the missing family member plays a surprisingly active role in the drama. The animation is beautiful and the film is essentially silent.

On Black Men by David Marriott

This is a researched and footnoted academic volume that was an alternative read for my book group one month. I finished the book we chose and started on this, and got stalled because it is populated by mutilated, dying or dead, black men, and it was so brutal in the way that it portrayed the way that black men play a role in the psychic life of American culture in general to southern culture in particular. This is a reflection on the persistent imagining of what black men must be, a demand that black men perform a script, become interchangeable with the uncanny, deeply unsettling, projections of culture. It is a powerful and compelling study that explores the legacy of that role, particularly its violent effect on how black men have learned to see themselves and one another. David Marriott draws upon a range of examples, from lynching photographs to recent Hollywood films, as well as the ideas of key thinkers including Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and John Edgar Wideman, to reveal a vicious pantomime of the predominant culture taking a look at itself through images of black desolation, and of blacks intimately dispossessed by that self-same looking.

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse (2022)

This beautifully animated movie is taken from a children's picture book, and the animated characters imintate the illustrated ones from the book. A boy, a mole, a fox, and a horse share a series of heartfelt and profound conversations about the meaning of life, universal truths and friendship. The story is peacefully told, and explores our innermost feelings with delicate sensitivity and candor. All four characters represent different parts of the same person: the quiet and endlessly inquisitive boy, the mole who’s enthusiastic but a bit greedy, the fox who’s been hurt so is withdrawn from life, slow to trust but wants to be part of things, and the horse who’s the wisest bit, the deepest part of you, the soul. Together they attempt to make their way in life.