bad behavior

Went out and bought John Dos Passos' The 42nd Parallel (first book in the U.S.A. trilogy) and read a bit of it, already entranced. Also Craig Ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River. I'm surprised more comedians aren't novelists because good comedy and good literature (and good music for that matter) is all about beat, timing, pacing, knowing when to spring something on the audience and when to hold back. Actually, I think comedians should be allowed in the Writer's Guild, even if they don't publish their work. Theirs may be a largely spoken word medium, but they write everything beforehand -- they operate on a script of their own devising, so let'em in, I say! Comedians need health insurance, too!

I also saw Reign Over Me yesterday, largely because the last scene was filmed across from the apartment building on the Upper West Side where I babysat last year. I knew it was an Adam Sandler film, but had I known it was a serious Adam Sandler film co-starring Don Cheadle, I would have chucked my kids over and gone to stalk Don Cheadle because he's a really fine actor. Anyhow, the film was better than I expected from the subdued reviews it received. Yeah, it's two hours long, yeah, the subplot with crazy Saffron Burrows is bizarre and forced, but at the end of the movie, I asked myself, "Am I happy I spent six dollars to come see the matinee of this movie?" and the answer was, "Yes." Cheadle and Sandler have a good thing going together, and for all its faults, its worth the intense little trip.

Page 155. I must reach 160 by Thursday morning. This is my goal. I ain't leaving Sarasota without 160 pages, whether they suck or not. I'm trying to put in a bit of fun stuff, a bit of the ridiculous, because let's face it, life is ridiculous, and personally, I'm exasperated to the point of banging my head against cymbals at least every other day, despite my solitary sort of life, and I imagine if your family were falling apart, and you were criminals, or the child of criminals, or the hostage of criminals, you might be a bit exasperated too. And nothing really reflects that quite so well as the media, so there you are.

I bought two postcards from the Ringling Museum last Monday of paintings I found particularly striking. Since I am sure there are copyright problems with inserting pictures of them, I will simply direct you to Google or otherwise check out Moonlight Landscape, by Joseph Wright of Derby, and Roman Courtship, by Sir William E. Reynolds-Stephens, for a bit of art appreciation.