Good morning. Hello. How are you? #718
A night alone, Rings of Power, Plex additions, Taylor Swift vinyl and tissue paper stars, more blathering about conservatism, the fed, Warren Towers at BU
Good morning! Hello. How are you? Apologies for labeling yesterday’s mix tape Aug 31 on Sept 1st. I am trying. I will try harder. Also there was an errant comma in the subhead, but at least the Facebook readers couldn’t see that as I don’t paste over the subhead text. One of the many (well, two) things you miss out on with the Facebook version. Plus photos. And the occasional button. Like this one:
Happy Friday before a holiday weekend, isn’t that nice? Good morning to you west coasters and Alaskans, apologies to you east coasters for being tardy. Jane is at Grammy’s, Emma is at DragonCon, I spent my first night alone in the house in, gosh… two? Three years? It was pretty great.
I watched the first two episodes of Rings of Power with a couple friends on text. I loved them. I may have teared up. My friends loved them too. But, then, another friend on the Twitters expressed disappointment with them, so YMMV. It must be so hard, though. You have… what? Three cohorts of audience? Minimum? Outright Tolkein fans, and we all know how rabid those can be, casual fans primarily of the movies, and then just a general television audience. That latter audience might not understand anything at all at first, and need copious signpointing. The outright Tolkein fans wanna see the introduction of some of the characters they know and love from the second age, people not in the movies. And you need to rope the film buffs back in. And you need to compress thousands of years into a coherent narrative. All with a property that everyone knows the author didn’t even want films made of, and some of the most hardcore fans agree with that. Not an easy task. Cannot be perfect. But I think they struck a pretty incredible balance.
Just back from Walmart. I was gonna tell you that not a soul spoke to me there except for a single worker who barked an angry no at me that I did not deserve or do anything to instigate. But then in the parking lot the resident special needs cart attendent guy came up to me and started in on his prattle, which is always really great. It’s impossible to talk to him, he does not want you to talk back, though weirdly, he’s always looking for a reaction. Themes and variations of: “Call the police she said. Call the police. But then she meant the fashion police? Get it? Get it?” Kinda reminds me of Steven Stucker playing Johnny in Airplane! “Why, that's the Russian New Year. We can have a parade and serve hot hors d'oeuvres...” I always want to say something to him because he’s hilarious and I feel sort of awkward but then I realize the dude seems perfectly happy and he does not need me to validate him. Anyway Walmart had no snow peas or bean sprouts which is a shame, but it did have literally six thousand different packaging variants of regular-flavor Kit Kats. Seriously why do Kit Kats come in so many different packages it really is a mystery. No nifty new Walmart special edition LPs.
No Top Gun Maverick on 4K UHD yet, but I cheated and ordered it from Best Buy what are you gonna do. Ive been buying Blu Rays again I don’t know why it is so 1990’s. Still ripping ‘em to Plex and then selling them on eBay for about a 30% loss. It’s not so bad. It keeps me busy. Devil and idle hands and whatnot. Speaking of which, if you’re on my Plex I’ve recently added: The Bad News Bears, director’s cut of the original The Exorcist, Helena Bonham Carter in an obscure Canadian romance period piece called Margaret’s Museum that Annie and I saw somewhere I think Toronto Film Festival? Can’t exactly remember. Wild In the Streets from 1968, The Florda Project, Justice League (non-Snyder cut) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The new Jurassic World is going up this weekend. All very exciting, I know.
There’s a new Taylor Swift album and I swear to god she’s going to bankrupt me. Four different covers with four different colored vinyls? Come on, maaaan. I contained myself. I bought two. This is all very exciting because now we get to find out how committed Taylor is to the whole “tissue paper stars packed in with the LPs” bit being run out of her mail order operation. So far she’s had three different colors of tissue paper to match the albums: autumnal silver and gold for Folklore and Evermore, and red ones for Red (Taylor’s Version). Is she now going to have four new colors for the four new vinyl variants? I can’t wait I am giddy with anticipation I have so much to live for. I long to do an update to my one and only TikTok video ever.
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Been thinking about the Fed a lot this week. They seemed so relentless in their quest to stamp out inflation. Does it seem… a bit monomaniacal to everyone else? Doesn’t it seem weird they’re like “this might hurt a bit” and by hurting they mean jobs and labor and recession, when, like, they have a dual mandate? Am I being dumb here? Why am I thinking about this so much. Do you feel inflation? I think I do. Like I only really buy records and groceries but I have noticed the grocery bill is definitely creeping up. But, then, I am buying more expensive brands as I pay more attention to sustainability and organics, well, I’ve always paid attention, but more and more things become available. I can’t really tell. I don’t really use gas. But, like, I like people having jobs? That seems good? That seems better than prices going up a bit? I am dubious, I am dubious. I’m not writing this because I have a brilliant point of view or anything, but just because it’s constantly on my mind this week and I am curious what you guys think.
My friend and old coworker has a daughter going to Boston University and she posted an Instagram photo from her dorm and it was the exact dorm I stayed in freshman year, Warren Towers. It was old then, it is unchanged now, kind of remarkable. Still no air conditioning. Still terrible fluourescent light. But when it’s your first place out of living with your parents, it is your palace. The trick with the fluorescent light is to cover it in stained glass wrapping paper. I passed this trick along. Here is baby Rick with his friend Jen in Warren Towers, 1991.
Joe Biden keeps popping up in my history of conservatism books now that we are in the Carter administration it is pretty funny man that guy is old. He hasn’t done anything super boneheaded yet but I suppose give it time. Right now it’s all William Safire and a guy named Richard Viguerie being so, so annoying. William Safire, a Watergate-era Nixon crony coined *gate for any other scandal, in his relentless efforts to mitigate the villany of Watergate and take down any Democrat ever the guy is so tedious. And Richard Viguerie is a lawbreaking direct mail kingpin who sets up dozens of astroturfed interlocking organizations with no purpose other than self enrichment and making everyone in America miserable. It really is just so, so painful. Right now in the book Phillys Schlafly and her croneys are raising Cain at this monumentally ill-advised National Women’s Convention thingy that no one realized was completely liable to be taken over by the pro lifers. So all these feminists and lesbians and whatnot thought they were gonna have a grand old time at a jamboree but in the end it turned out to be a giant internecine battle between women. Honestly that one’s pretty funny, they really should have seen it coming, but the thing about the entire conservative movement back then is it was so insular, so existing outside of the mainstream. Seven-eighths underwater, as Schlafly would say. There was no robust federation of watchdog groups keeping an eye on them. There was no internet. You could sell three million copies of a book about being a good god-loving housewife who loves beejs and neither the New York Times nor anyone on the left would even notice. They’re still at it, doing these exact things, but at least it doesn’t, like, sneak up on us anymore, and at least, I guess, the left is doing it too. Oh frabgeous day, callot callay.
Jane was lovely last night in mommy’s absense, thank you Jane. She even drew this adorable picture of us on her magnadoodle last night. Grammy says she’s being kind over at grammy’s today. Let’s all give Jane a round of applause pretty sure this is the longest she’s ever gone without mommy. Fingers crossed. I have exactly zero firm plans this weekend, my goal is to attend to her every need, be 100% present for her, do what she wants. Offer some outings — kinda hoping she’ll be down for a trip to the park and playground for a walk, but if not, that’s fine. If I have to spend the entire weekend playing dolls, I will do it. Watch me.
W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe mix today. Lotta new stuff, bunch out today, been listening to release radar this morning.
Okay have a lovely holiday. Do something fun and send me pictures so I can live vicariously. Maybe I’ll send you a cute picture of Jane in return.
my freshman roommate’s daughter is moving into warren towers (her preferred dorm) just two floors from where we lived, and i’m all 🤯