My week hanging out with my mom is coming to a close (though I shall return soon). We’ve had as much fun as you can have in a pandemic, and I’ve witnessed her one-woman mask-making factory in action. Melissa Hague and Nicole have recently provided yards of raw materials that will keep the factory humming.
We capped the week with some Mexican food and an unusual evening of viewing: we split up Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 quietly intense adaptation of Jane Eyre with 90 minutes of an NBA preview, which Mom actually enjoyed and I was more impressed with than I’d anticipated. I thought I was well weaned off sports from three months of fasting, but after seeing what the league’s done to help its teams deal with COVID-19 and its players address social injustice? I’ll bite. And if you haven’t seen Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska circle each other in that great, brooding Brontë-take, please do so post-haste. ‘Twas my second viewing, and I had no regrets: in fact, one day I want to venture through Derbyshire, where it was filmed, as well as check out Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire.
Also, Mom had a dinner margarita poured for herself before I had done so for myself. I had secretly restocked provisions earlier in the day but she sniffed them out. You have to move quickly to beat me to that elixir. Funny, but I think my dinner idea was triggered by having listened to David Berman’s “Margaritas at the Mall” in the morning while I was futzing with my car stereo (see comments).
Streaming for Strivers:
It’s not a “full album,” but it’s about a half-hour of a great front man’s trademark get-up-and-get-at-it. He’s been to France, so you just dance, ok?
The Overeem Farewell Tour: Dispatches from the Public School Trenches 