Lots and Lots and Lots!!!

I know it's been a while and it seems that Chris Brown and I were in a competition to see would would blog last, so he has won, though we have lost as we haven't heard his voice in a while (hint, Chris, BLOG!!!) Over the course of the last couple of weeks, lots has gone on, and I'd like to keep up with it all myself.

Firstly, I saw the latest Woody Allen film, Match Point. An incredible film that made the audience gasp not just a single time as the main character's murderous actions have social, moral and psychological ramifications unintended. Allen's moral crux posed at the beginning of the film is seen to carry itself out in the story which left myself and my wife with a sickened feeling in our stomachs as we wrestled with the idea of justice and the question of the root of evil.

I've had the opportunity to be reading as I've found myself with less schoolwork now that I finally have a prep period this term. I'm cracking Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey after having completed James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain. The latest New Yorker has a wonderful little piece on a couple who enjoy visiting graveyards in New England and how doing so has affected what the writer wishes to inscribe on his own. The magazine's film reviews were brutal on several recent releases and was condescendingly polite to Woody, even, though Match Point is receiving rave reviews from a vast majority of critics (personally, I think it's Scarlet, who's just about the sexiest thing on screen for the first part of the film - Woody's inner Russ Meyer comes out a bit, but partly it fits the story, and I'm not just being a guy about this). As my brother and I were discussing this, he stated that often, the writers hold the rest of American society in such contempt as it continually fails to produce anything of artistic quality and continued with the line of the decade:
"it comes across that people of the New Yorker too often believe that not only do they think that their shit doesn't stick but that it also tastes good, too." I challenge anyone to top that one as I still laugh when I think about it.
Staying on my New York kick, my wife and I watched Barefoot In the Park last night as we were in the mood for some Neil Simon. I figured that she would like gazing at a young Robert Redford all night which would allow me to ogle a young and extremely hot Jane Fonda. Light-heartedly and ultimately disposable, it was nonetheless fun to watch comedic fare from the late 1960s to see what made people laugh. Check it out for the scene of the two shiny new Ford Mustangs towards the end. Tonight, more lighthearted fare, Children of a Lesser God - yeah, right!!!
Musically, I'm still obsessed with the mid-century saxophonists and their incredible sounds they created. Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker, Hank Mobley, Lester Young. I can go on and on and on...all of this is gearing me up for catching McCoy Tyner in just a couple of weeks as he hits Yoshi's with Ravi Coltrane (not a bad tenor player himself), Bobby Hutcherson and a couple of other players. We'll go and have a fantastic sushi dinner before the show and have a great time.

Lastly, if anyone's reading this and actually has made it thus far, I'd like some advice. I'm itching to take my wife to Mendocino for a weekend getaway and don't know where to start. My old favorite haunt has been sold and my favorite room has re-modeled and the rates doubled. I'm not naive that I won't find a decent place for anywhere under $100 but I'd like to either find the best bang for my buck or the most special place on earth. I can see why so many people would love to retire up there; two years ago I spent one of the weirdest but magical weekends of my life there. For another post if I haven't already reminisced about this, but I'd like to get "back to the garden". Speaking of as well, what is anyone's favorite Joni Mitchell album? I'm ready to dedicate an entire post to this amazing and beautiful woman's music.