It's been a while ....

....  and I was hoping this year would be better, more writing, more witty quips, more fun. So far it isn't working out that way. But I will still strive to write here more often. Maybe if I wrote here more often I would feel better. (Huh.  Could that work?) I hesitate to think writing will help because I don't want to write about all the crappy stuff and that's what's on my mind lately. But life is strange and perhaps the writing will be cathartic, to use a big word.

Different topic than crappy stuff:  "Let Me Be Frank With You" is the latest book by Richard Ford starring his main man, Frank Bascombe.  It's a novel broken into 4 connected chapters. Frank is now 68. If you followed him in "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day" then you know he (Frank) is smart and sort of a wise-ass and yet sensitive.  But now, in his older years, he is trying to be less of a wise-ass out loud. He still is, in his head. And he is smart but he is trying to not that get in the way of anything.

Plus Frank is feeling his age and that's a good thing for us readers, us older readers, who are also feeling their age. He is funny and not often wise but I would love to meet up with him and have a cocktail or a coffee.  He's that kind of guy.

This book made me want to go back and re-read the other Richard Ford books and I will, eventually.  I don't remember much about Frank Bascombe from those books but I do remember that I really liked the books.  (Selective memory, old age, ha!)  And I really like this book.  "Let Me Be Frank With You" is a good book and you should read it.

Another thing, a movie:  "Skeleton Twins" is available for rent from Amazon and so I rented it.  Not a happy movie but not sad either. Maybe it's my current frame of mind (slightly warped and crooked and dusty) but I liked it a lot. The characters are in a bleak part of their lives and aren't handling it very well.  (Well, who does?)  They say cruel things (who doesn't?) that they regret and yet they very rarely apologize for what they say because they are family and hey, that's just family talk. (And we all know about that.)  Their internal dark demons try to smother them and those demons almost succeed. Check it out.  It isn't a weeper, not sad in that way, and there is one great scene where the brother and sister (twins) do a dance and a lip-synch to an old "Starship" song from the 80's.  That alone is worth the price of admission.

That's all for now but I will try and expand the frequency of these blogs. 

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