PSA: Grocery Shopping -- October 18, 2023

Locator: 45812PSA.

Grocery shopping list.

September: before October, start buying a little bit of candy each time you stop by Walmart, Target. Or Amazon. If you're buying candy, you are behind the 8-ball, as they say.

October: start stocking up for Thanksgiving. After Halloween, it will be too late to start getting ready for Thanksgiving.  If you have a freezer, buy your turkey now. 

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The Periodical Page

Of all the "magazines" to which I subscribe, The Atlantic never, never disappoints. This issue was particularly good.

Articles in the latest issue, long essays on each of the following:

• the retiring General Mark Milley;
• the retiring US senator Mitt Romney;
• the hope-to-be retiring Kamala Harris;
• Two book reviews:
• The Maniac, by "Chilean" writer Benjammin Labatut.
• The Iliad, by Emily Wilson.

I've just finished The Maniac. Incredible. Biographical novel; it was only about halfway through the book when I "figured" out the author's style. Very, very clever.

I can't image reading this new version of The Iliad: sounds like it's being translated (for the umpteenth time) by a woke author: removing the barbaric words from The Iliad. And, I guess, she uses "more" poetic words. Sounds like a doctoral thesis. Good for Emily Wilson, but really, do we need yet another translation? My hunch: the review by Graeme Wood will be better than the translation by Emily Wilson.

Graeme Wood? Look at this resume:

In 2017, he won the Canadian Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction, which he was eligible for due to holding Canadian citizenship, for his book The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State.

Graeme Wood was born in Polk County, Minnesota.

He grew up in Dallas and graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas in 1997. He spent a year studying Arabic Language at American University in Cairo, and also studied central Asian languages at Indiana University and Deep Springs College before transferring to Harvard College to study African-American Studies and Philosophy, graduating in 2001.

St Mark's in Dallas? 

Wes Anderson’s first feature film was also his first collaboration with actors Owen and Luke Wilson. The director filmed “Bottle Rocket” primarily on location in Dallas, the same city where the Wilson brothers were raised. (Anderson also grew up in Texas.)

The high school featured in the film, St. Mark’s High School, was where Owen Wilson went to school before being expelled for cheating on a math test.

The actor reportedly chose the school for the film as an act of playful revenge. The film also features the last house Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed, the Gillin Residence, a sprawling building in Wright’s signature Usonian style. This Dallas house serves as the backdrop for where the eccentric robbery crew plot and practice their heists.

Our family knows St Mark's well. Our oldest granddaughter competed against St Mark's on numerous occasions -- water polo. Wow, what great memories. 

Usonian style?

Usonia is a word that was used by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to the United States in general (in preference over America), and more specifically to his vision for the landscape of the country, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. 

Wright proposed the use of the adjective Usonian to describe the particular New World character of the American landscape as distinct and free of previous architectural conventions.

Wow -- what a great blog.

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The Movie Page

Ranking Wes Anderson's eleven movies.

Link here.

I would tend to agree.

Budapest Hotel (#4) just barely beats out Asteroid City (#5).

Two completely different movies.

Budapest Hotel is prototypical Wes Anderson.

Asteroid City is Ameria's answer to Ingmar Bergman and/or Henrik Ibsen. 

Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands comes to mind. Stars Johnny Depp.

Back to: Budapest Hotel (#4) just barely beats out Asteroid City (#5).

The question: whether this list holds up ten years from now (the same movies, not including any future Wes Anderson movies). I think Asteroid City holds up better among serious movie critics -- the ones who like Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles.