Tuesday 1/25/22
It's eight in the morning. Have written two complete op-eds today--one on sports being the last meritocracy in America, the other on The Godfather and Mafia films.
Watched a Norwegian film from 1958 called Lake of the Dead. Fair. Should have been better than it was. Talky and not very convincing. And the scenes outside at night--which is a lot of the film--look like they were shot in daylight. The movie is basically those sequences, or else guys explaining things inside of a cabin.
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It's 11 AM now. Walked six miles and wrote a fine new story called "Desilva." It's about a dog, named Thaddeus, who gets trapped on some ice. We see what the dog has meant in the lives of the narrator--even though it's not his dog--and the family next door who are the best friends of the narrator and his wife. The title character is this bad guy from high school. Everyone sort of grew up in this same town. They're in their forties now. He works for the fire department. It seems like there's not a lot that can be done for this dog that's done a lot for these people. The narrator's son, for instance, was hit by a car, nearly died, and was in bed for a couple months. The dog then virtually became that family's dog. Boosted the boy's spirits. And in that time the dad and the son got a lot closer than they might have otherwise. Anyway, the people in the story have reason to really dislike Desilva. We find out why the narrator's friend especially hates him at the end. But it's a story about gratitude, more than anything, and the different ways we might look at people, depending.
Also listened to the Vaccines' latest album and volume 1 of the Stax/Volt Revue Live in London. Watched part of a film, too, texted my uncle for his eightieth birthday, and left a friend a seventeen minute voicemail going through recent happenings. I got a late start today, too. Wrote a couple entries on here. Makes you think about how much time there is in a day, no?
Here we call this bringing the motherfucking intensity (MFI). Do you bring the motherfucking intensity?