Cloister Commentary, Day 139: Revivals

I know enough about Facebook’s malfeasances to run screaming from the platform, but I think of George Strait and Dylan Thomas: I’m in too deep to turn back now, so I guess I’ll sing in my chains like the sea. I’m duplicating this journey elsewhere on the InnerTubes, so it’s less about this than not being able to stay in such immediate touch with so many people who’ve enriched my life. Maybe I’ll pay for it one day. (Thanks to my former student Kristin Conrad for making me furrow my brow over it.)

My major project yesterday was finishing up some estate work for Nicole and me. To my chagrin, I discovered I’d last looked at the documents in 2014. However, I put my head down and bulled through most of the rest of it; now, we have only the hardest questions remaining. One would think that, since we have no heirs, those concerns should be easy to address, but they are not. And though we’re both pretty healthy, that can be quite a temporary condition under normal circumstances, not to mention right now.

Nicole made chickpea tikka masala with brown basmati rice: delicious, healthy, and very hard to confine to one serving, but I did–I’m working on my “COVID 10.” After dinner, we tuned into Turner Classic Movies and deeply enjoyed Elmer Gantry. What a wild performance by Burt Lancaster, what an essential archival viewing for U. S. citizens (even though it softens Sinclair Lewis’ novel a bit), and what surprising production values and erotic touches for a 1960 mainstream film! Did you know (I bet Rex Harris does) that both actors who played “Sammy Baker Davis Junior”‘s grandpas in Sixteen Candles also play small but key roles in Elmer Gantry, shot 24 years before?

Streaming for Survivors:

What a band, and what an inside-outside record!