I have just finished reading Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki, which I enjoyed.
As a minimalist myself it's always interesting to read someone else's thoughts on the subject.


On page 240 he mentions, very casually, "during ethics lessons in elementary school".

So in Japan they have ethics classes in elementary school.  I assume for that age group that the classes include ethics in day to day life, not just the sort of thing doctors or lawyers are expected to be exposed to.

So in Japan people learn about ethics, in everyday life, in elementary school.


Sounds like a very good idea to me.

I wonder if there are other countries that do this.

Seriously, if you feel like drinking port out of a martini glass you should just go ahead and do it.

What is it with these women who walk down the centre of the sidewalk and refuse to move, even an inch, for other people on the sidewalk?

I've had this happen when I've been lugging two full carry-alls of groceries and they've been carrying nothing but a purse.

I'm not being misogynistic here.  Men do it too but 90% of the time it's a woman.  (And I generally like women far better than I like men.)

When this happens I try to remind myself that I'm lucky not to be some poor schmuck who's married to or involved with them and has to put up with their self-centered shit regularly.

Through no fault of my own I've been exposed to a slew of  YouTube videos recently.

Some were interesting but a lot were superficial crap posted by young people (who I can understand being a bit silly, they're young and their frontal cortexes are still developing) but also by a lot of older people.

It makes me wonder:

Are we not expecting people to become adults anymore?

A Whole Bunch of Movies

I mainly watch movies on DVD's that I borrow from the library.

Recently a slew of them I'd requested showed up at almost the same time.



Doctor Strange
Well put together, fun, the cast is good.  These action comic type things just are not for me - perhaps I'm just too old.


Florence Foster Jenkins
Pretty good, easy to watch, often touching.
Hugh Grant all grown up.
Simon Helberg charming.


The Light Between Oceans.
The cast is great, the writing good, the photography beautiful.


Little Men
A low budget film with an excellent cast and so much said and unsaid.
Definitely my kind of film.


The Conjuring 2
I may not be a comic fan but I'm a long time fan of horror - well done things with a budget like this one but also low budget schlock.
Some good scary moments.
Perhaps just a bit too long.


Tremors: 1,2,3,4,5
Yep, I watched them all in sequence.
These are just great - a rare case where the sequels at least hold up or even get better as they go along.
Michael Gros is just delightful.


The Iron Lady
Finally got to see this.
Meryl Streep deserved the awards she got for this one.    I often forgot it was her on the screen.

Movie: The Quiet Earth (1985)

I saw this movie in the theatre when it was originally released.
It was satisfying to see it on DVD all these years later and find it doesn't seem like an old out of date film at all.

Lots to think about while watching it and after.

It's a film I would like to spend time talking about with someone but there's no longer anyone in my life who has any interest in this type of film.  (One way I suppose that we senior citizens become isolated from the world.)

There was commentary on the disc which included Neil Degrasse Tyson which was good but more limited that I had hoped.

Movie: Genius (2016)

A really good movie - not a great movie but a good movie and I enjoyed it very much.

A movie for grown-ups.

About art, love, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, loss,  survival...

The cast were all in good form.

The script was excellent.

The credits are backed by a beautiful arrangement of 'Flow Gently Sweet Afton".
(Such a treat to finish a film without pop music.)

Something that my extrovert friends don't understand is that when I know I'm going to have an evening, or a day, or a weekend on my own that scheduled alone time is just as important to me as any social event that I have committed to.  


It is difficult when someone wants me to do something and they just don't understand that just because I have nothing social planned for that time that that means that I am available.  I'm not.  I'm hugely disappointed if I have to miss expected alone time.

It just seems to me so much nicer if you are serving yourself cheese that if you need to hold the cheese in order to cut it that you put your finger on the portion you are going to take and not on the portion you are going to leave.