I provoke, but really, that is the question that burns beneath the beautiful surfaces of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. I say this as an agnostic, as one who dislikes theology and theologians, but as one who (like many other critics) finds that this movie "touches me so much I can barely stand it." The storyContinue reading “Tree of Life: Does God love us in an abusive way?”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens
Anyway they can: My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementaryContinue reading “How freelance writers survive: by shovel and hoe, w/chickens”
Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details
Eugene Robinson wraps up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project results in an op-ed for the Washington Post: [Richard] Muller found that skeptics are wrong when they claim that a “heat island” effect from urbanization is skewing average temperature readings; monitoring instruments in rural areas show rapid warming, too. He found that skeptics are wrongContinue reading “Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details”
Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life
From an unpretentious and persuasive visual essay on the most debated movie of the year, The Tree of Life, by Matt Zoller Seitz: There is this central notion in all of Malick’s films that every individual person is just one tiny part of nature. Not too much more important in the larger scheme of thingsContinue reading “Reconciling religion and evolution: The Tree of life”
What makes Americans unhappy?
It's not just the recession, as this fascinating graphic — based on a Gallup poll of "subjective well-being" taken daily — shows, based on a statistical resampling of results by Princeton economist Angus Deaton. Here's the logic, from Ezra Klein's great WonkBlog: There are some big changes that seem to make sense: a big dropContinue reading “What makes Americans unhappy?”
Alfred Hitchock on global warming
Well, not exactly. But in his "Picture of the Week" feature on his chatty blog, Peter Bogdanovich — who directed one of the great pictures of my youth, The Last Picture Show — has some interesting thoughts from Hitch on nature and revenge re: The Birds: When I asked Hitch what he felt the movieContinue reading “Alfred Hitchock on global warming”
Did alternative medicine lead to Steve Jobs’ death?
That's what some critics — all of whom appear to be admirers of Steve Jobs — are saying. Fortune magazine, 2003: During a routine abdominal scan, doctors had discovered a tumor growing in his pancreas. While a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is often tantamount to a swiftly executed death sentence, a biopsy revealed that JobsContinue reading “Did alternative medicine lead to Steve Jobs’ death?”
What we have over-run and on which we rely
Here's a lovely profile of a poet new to me, Kim Stafford, from High Country News' Uncommon Westerners features series. The writer finds Stafford in a coffee shop in Portland. Nearby, writes Tara Rae Miner, is "a strip of untamed land, bounded by busy roads in a dense, urban landscape. It is not a park,Continue reading “What we have over-run and on which we rely”
Brad Pitt to win Best Actor
Reviewing Moneyball for The New Yorker, David Denby declares that Brad Pitt should win Best Actor — for The Tree of Life. He's right about that, and he describes Pitt's performance well: …in Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” in which he plays a father who takes out his disappointments on his sons, his anger is self-woundingContinue reading “Brad Pitt to win Best Actor”
GOP candidate stumbles over Kurt Cobain
Having gotten attention with a contrarian admission that yes, global warming is a matter of science and fact, alleged GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman again played the rebel card at the Tea Party debate this evening with a bizarre reference to Kurt Cobain. "I don't think anything should be off the table except maybe someContinue reading “GOP candidate stumbles over Kurt Cobain”
Kit Stolz 