Quarterly Update - Goals

• I’m almost halfway through one afghan. I am maybe 10 percent through another one. I haven’t thought about the third one I am planning to finish this year.
  
  
• I have done nothing about organizing photos.
  
  
• I’ve read 9 books (and almost through a tenth). None of them were poetry. So I am behind the curve on my reading goal.
  
  
• I have entered the Style Invitational twice, so I am actually ahead of things on one goal. None of those entries got ink, alas.
  
  
• I’ve done one Volksmarch event. I’ll count that as being on pace, because I have solid plans to do another one this month.
  
  
• Every night I hear the rustle of papers reproducing in my living room. I have sorted some out, but progress is slower than I’d like.
  
  

1st Quarter 2018 Movies

I saw only a few movies this quarter, all of them in January.

1. What We Do in the Shadows: A few years ago I had asked for recommendations for vampire movies and this was one that a friend suggested. I finally got around to watching it on New Year’s Day. It’s a mockumentary about a group of vampires who share a flat in Wellington, New Zealand. I thought this was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen – a truly original twist on a familiar genre. It probably helps to have seen a lot of the classic vampire films to get the references. Highly recommended.
   
   
2. Foxcatcher: I’m not entirely sure why I decided to watch this on a long flight, but it was not a great choice. I vaguely remember the murder case in which a du Pont heir killed a wrestler who had been coaching his team, but I didn’t really know much about it. After watching it, I mostly concluded that John du Pont was a pathetic wannabe, incapable of establishing relationships with other people. Maybe I’d have liked this movie better if I cared more about wrestling, but I thought it was too long and too slow-paced. On the plus side, there are good performances from Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo.
   
   
3. In Between: This was a fascinating movie about three Arabic women living in Tel Aviv. Leila is a secular Muslim who works as a criminal defense lawyer. Salma is a Christian – and a lesbian – who works as a bartender and disc jockey. And Noor is a religious Muslim woman studying computer science. They’re caught up in the conflicts between tradition and modernity, each in their own way. What I particularly liked is the friendship between the three women, despite their very different backgrounds. The issues they confront are sometimes difficult to watch, but felt realistic (alas). I did wish that Layla didn’t smoke (and use drugs) so much, but toxic behaviors are not uncommon among people who are exploring their freedoms. Recommended.