Ms. Purple and The Farewell

Ms. Purple and The Farewell both focus on a dying parent as they consider Asian American immigrant and first-generation experience. Ms. Purple is a sadder, perhaps deeper or more intense movie while The Farewell has more laughs as it considers the psychology of not telling Grandma she's dying. Both recommended--good, if not great.

Crazy Rich Dufflemans

Cyrus Stands Tall Among Kraus, Kundera, Kwan, Kwok, and Kwon

an original work of literature

Enjoy a bargain for an original work of literature.

our terror of going hungry

“We had only one thing in common in our family in the Passage, and that was our terror of going hungry. We all had plenty of that. It was with me from my first breath. . . They passed it on to me. . . We were all obsessed with it. . . As far as we were concerned, the soul was fear. In every room the walls sweated fear of going without. . . It made us swallow the wrong way, it made us bolt our meals and run around town like mad. . . we zigzagged like fleas all over Paris, from the Place Maubert to the Etoile, for fear of being auctioned off, for fear of the rent, of the gas man, the tax collector. . . We were always in such a hurry I never had time to wipe myself properly.”

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Flame and Fortune

Jason Arment's "Flame and Fortune" was published at Eclectica Magazine.

totalitarian podcast

Check out Daniel Kalder on his research into totalitarian dictators.

'Twas Milton's

"Free Library of Philadelphia’s rare Shakespeare First Folio appears to have been poet John Milton’s" by Bethany Ao

Release

I have been storing up so much inside;
when will it be time to let it all go,
and how unburden myself of it all?
Dashing through the snow, wolves snap at my heels,
supplies that I had been transporting home
distract them when I toss them behind me--
one wolf yelps and snarls when I hit its nose,
but it stays behind to rip it open

and eat it, gulping it down greedily
and not worrying about digesting.
Over my lifelong journey home, I have
collected many exquisite things,
and many just of personal value.
As the signs say, though, Everything Must Go!

~~ "Release" by Don Riggs

Goncharov's Oblomov

Goncharov's Oblomov greeted me as I stepped off an elevator during a recent visit to a research library.

Junk is fragile. . .

“Junk is fragile. I ruined tons of stuff, never on purpose. The thought of antiques still makes me sick, but that was our bread and butter. The scrapings of time are sad. . . lousy, sickening. We sold the stuff over the customer's dead body. We'd wear him down. We'd drown his wits in floods of hokum. . . incredible bargains. . . we were merciless. . . He couldn't win. . . If he had any wits to begin with, we demolished them. . . He'd walk out stunned with the Louis XIII cup in his pocket, the openwork fan with cat and shepherdess wrapped in tissue paper. You can't imagine how they revolted me, grown-ups taking such crap home with them.”

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Nine Eleven

I'm 73, and I live in a van.

Opinion piece inspired by Jessica Bruder's Nomadland: "I'm 73, and I live in a van. I feel like there's no place for me in California anymore."

Death on the Installment Plan

"The fairy tales people tell each other. . . they make a certain amount of sense, but they're a pack of filthy, stinking lies. . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine