I'm just going to come out and say this: I hate the heat. Yes, I know, people love the heat! I do not. I like October and November with a sweatshirt, that smoky tang in the air, seeing your breath ever so slightly, that Dunkin' Donuts coffee that is just the right temperature as you walk across a field, leaves crunching underfoot.
Today I ran three miles, and then that was it. Well, I walked about three later, going to the Public Garden, where I took this photo of some ducklings:
I didn't see the ducklings this year when they were Peep-sized (when they make that peep-peep sound, too), but these are the best ducklings in America: from the very spot of Make Way for Ducklings! See? That's the authentic duckling experience. But I could have wrung out my shirt after that run, so I didn't climb the Monument. I don't really understand why there is such widespread heat love. I'm also fasting for the day because I was a lazy log, physically, yesterday and the day before.
Salon made an assignment today to have me write about the pleasing melancholia of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine film, which is getting a theatrical release next weekend. I have quite a few cinematic options this weekend--M. Hulot's Holiday, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). I'm going to see Solo at some point, but I find all of these Star Wars films awful. It's like those writers who do those books carrying on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. They always suck, don't they? Star Wars was three films from 1977-1983, and only one of those films is a great work of art that will always last so long as cinema lasts. And it's not The Empire Strikes Back. I'll see Hereditary, too, and I'll hope it's better than Get Out, one of the worst films I've ever seen. I'm convinced that if you know anything about film history, if you've screened widely, if you know horror and horror comedy, that you can't see Get Out as anything but a retread of a retread of a retread that is entirely a product of a time of slapping the right stickers on the cover of your laptop and no depth, no substance, no perspective, no artistry, no artistic character, no character, no value.
There are two promising exhibits opening at the MFA, which I might see for the first time this weekend. I'll likely write about at least one of them. First up, Casanova's Europe and then French pastels. I love pastels. Along with watercolors, it's a favorite medium of mine. I was thinking I would have been able to upload links there so that you could see a rectangular representation of the exhibit here on this blog page, but obviously that did not work out. I still. don't really know what I'm doing on here with some things.
Big Red Sox v. Yankees series starts tonight in the Bronx. The American League is so top heavy, with three teams well on pace to win over 100 games. The Red Sox never win 100 games. Not in my lifetime. It's just not something they do.
I'll walk out to the Coolidge Corner Theatre next week to have a meeting about this seminar business. Coolidge Corner is about five miles from here, and a regular turnaround point on one of the walks I take. As with all walks, in my view, it's better in autumn. I like to stop at Amory Park. I like the name Amory, in part because of the main character of Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, and also because someday when I get my house back in Rockport I want to have a Jack Russell named Amory. Big Jack Russell fan. They're very smart. You have to challenge them mentally, or they start messing up your house, hiding your keys, and really, how can you not respect that? They're also the dog breed that is given up most commonly, and having been discarded my fair share of times in my life, I suppose I connect with this on some level, and I just think we'd be symbiotic. If I'm not challenged mentally, I'm also a key-hider.
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