The Story of the Lost Child

Completed the series!

Daniel Craig

Casino Royale is still my favorite,

but Spectre satisfied the Daniel Craig/James Bond itch.

The Speras

Gorgeous sunset hike with The Speras,

followed by cocktails in the canyon,

and dinner at the Beachwood Cafe.

Finished the night with an episode of Fargo (brilliant!!).

It officially feels like the holidays.

Binge Reading

The best type of holiday binging,

Elena Ferrante's Nepolitan quartet.

Desert Unwind

The Lazy Photographer

Today the traffic gods were not on my side.

After listening to two This American Life episodes,

I was still two podcasts away from my destination.

I reached for my camera, a distraction from my mounting frustration.

Construction rerouted me through the streets of Azusa,

The late afternoon autumn light was luminous on telephone and transmission wires.

An hour or so later, somewhere on the 210,

I watched an amazing sunset as I inched forward in traffic.

I had no idea what I shot,

but I was gladly rewarded with a few happy accidents.

My Brilliant Friend

The first of Elena Ferrante's quartet of books

lives up to the heralded praise.

She deftly articulates the strong hold and intricacies of female friendship.

I loved being immersed in Neapolitan culture, my roots;

so familiar and yet so foreign.

M Train

Saw Patti Smith at The Orpheum Theater tonight,

on tour for her new book M Train.

Her persona on stage, talking with Jonathan Lethem and answering questions from the audience,

was less refined

than the character that emerged from the pages of her poetic memoir, Just Kids.

Her working class, Jersey girl roots were evident as she told random, humorous anecdotes.

And then she surprised the crowd by singing four songs.

I was never a fan of her music, her writing is what compels me,

but I immediately understood her as the iconic performer she is.

The next time someone asks me who I'd invite to my fantasy dinner party,

she's getting a seat at the table.

Nightfall

Say a Prayer

It is not Paris we should pray for.

It is the world. It is a world in which Beirut,

reeling from bombings two days before Paris,

is not covered in the press.

A world in which a bomb goes off at a funeral in Baghdad

and not one person's status update says "Baghdad", 

because not one white person died in that fire.

Pray for the world

that blames a refuge crisis for a terrorist attack.

That does not pause to differentiate between the attacker

and the person running from the very same thing you are.

Pray for a world

where people walking across countries for months,

their only belongings upon their backs,

are told they have no place to go.

Say a prayer for Paris by all means,

but pray more,

for the world that does not have a prayer

for those who no longer have a home to defend.

For a world that is failling apart in all corners,

and not simply in the towers and cafes we find so familiar. 

Asha Sehgal

 

Between the World and Me

I found this book hauntingly profound and disturbingly honest.

It left a deep sadness in my chest,

 for I share the author's beliefs.

In 1962, James Baldwin wrote a similar letter to his nephew.
So little has changed.
What will take for equality to exist in this country?

"The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,”

said the great South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun.

And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class,

and are respected and treated as equals."

And there it is—the right to break the black body as the meaning of their sacred equality.

And that right has always given them meaning,

has always meant that there was someone down in the valley

because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below.

And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream,

to fold my country over my head like a blanket.

But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs,

the bedding made from our bodies. 

The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people”

but what our country has, throughout its history,

taken the political term “people” to actually mean.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ira Glass

Delightfully entertaining and thought provoking show

at the gorgeous United Artists Theater in DTLA.

Ebbing Light

Days after the clocks turned back,

the year-long heatwave ceased.

With the embracement of fewer hours of sunlight,

I've had an easier time enjoying the moment

and letting go of worrying about the future.

In due time it will reveal itself.